My life for the next couple of months...

The edges and surfaces of the Balbinus look good to me. I didn't find anything in the fake databases either, but did dig up with a few obverse die matches:


HD Rauch Summer Auction 2013 (18 Sep 2013), lot 813



Münzen & Medaillen 14 (16 Apr 2004), lot 229


Kunker 115 (25 Sep 2006), lot 691

My coin again:

 

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Both look fine to me as well---but I can understand Doug suggesting Balbinus be Sears's Certified due to its scarcity and value...

Congrats again 'Z' !!!!!

 

I agree... ultimately, the decision on which ones I send to him may simply come down to the value of the coins, but at the same time, there are a few that are distinctly more questionable than the others (I'll get around to posting those). I'm still waiting for Sear to reply to me regarding return shipping charges, but in any case, I hope nobody will hold their breath waiting for results because his current waiting period is 8 weeks .

 

What is the dot on the neck on the Balbinus? Does it show on any other die?

 

The Balbinus is beautiful. I sincerely hope it's authentic. It certainly looks the part.

 

Some sort of die damage is my guess. I didn't see other dies with a dot in this area, or anywhere else that I noticed.

 

Here's the Otho denarius of the collection. I think it has been worked to make it more round, and a series of vertical cuts running all around the edge further indicate that the coin has spent some time as jewelry (see picture below).

That said, I'm glad that the disfigurement wasn't worse, and for my money it remains a nice coin... certainly so for my collection!





OTHO
AR Denarius
3.19g, 17.6mm
Rome mint, 15 Jan to mid-April 69
RIC I (second edition) Otho 8
O: IMP M OTHO CAESAR AVG TR P, bare head right.
R: SECVRITAS P R, Securitas, draped, standing left, holding wreath in right hand and sceptre in left

Thanks again to @TIF for suggesting that I get the coin checked out by Jyrki Muona. Prof Muona has published a die analysis based on 1000 coins of Otho from the Rome mint. He was kind enough to look at the pictures I sent him and has given this coin the all-clear. He also found a reverse die match to a coin in his study, with the obverse die close enough to that coin's that he believes it was cut by the same engraver.

 

Definitely ex-jewelry, but a great coin, and certainly a keeper!

 

Being obviously ex-jewelry to the degree that it explains the problems is so much better than just having a coin with a few scrapes on the edges that leave you wondering what they were trying to hide. It also make the whole group look better but any gathering put together by an amateur like any of us still can have a few mistakes mixed in. I'm sure I have a couple (hopefully not too many).

I noticed in the stack more than one better than average type from the early Late Roman period. There was a Constantine Caesar and some abdications, I believe. If the group was a collection and was not just a 'one per' it would be interesting to try to guess what interested the collector.

 

On my first pass through the collection I saw a couple of questionable large bronzes... not any of the major coins, so I haven't gotten around to examining them in detail yet.

You're spot on! There are two abdication issues and one very nice Constantine as caesar from the Carthage mint. Based on the notes I made, the Diocletian and Maximianus abdication coins are both very interesting. The Diocletian is an issue with PTR in the exergue suggesting Treveri mint, but KS above that, and a CNG sale record of this type describes it as being actually the Cyzicus mint, where the design of the earliest issues including the mintmark was copied wholesale from Treveri, the mistake only rectified later. The Maximianus abdication from Aquileia appears to be extra scarce (RIC VI 63b), with the legend BAEATISSIMO SEN AVG rather than FELICISSIMO SEN AVG... I looked around for another example but couldn't find one.

I'm not sure if I'll ever get a good sense of the collector's main collecting focus, but I am so far liking his individual coin choices!

 

That is the widely-accepted interpretation of the issues with two different mint marks.

 

Yeah, I don't think there's any controversy over the issue. Any idea when this interpretation was put out there? Maybe it shouldn't be that much of a surprise, but apart from CNG's, I see sale records of the type still ascribing it to Treveri:
http://www.acsearch.info/search.html?id=2155790
http://www.acsearch.info/search.html?id=802025
http://www.acsearch.info/search.html?id=1196174

 

Uhh..well, it's one of those factoids I remember reading about some years back. I can't quote the source off the top of my head, but it may come to me.

 

Just dug up this post in Forvm by Martin and there's a reply mentioning that this issue (overlooked in RIC) was noted as early as 1987:
http://www.forumancientcoins.com/board/index.php?topic=68887.0

As a side note... it's to be expected, but the coin he shows in that thread is much nicer than mine (which has yet to be photographed) .

 

Aaaand, that would be my source. I remember reading that thread some time ago. I just wonder why coins of Trier would have been used as patterns for Cyzicus emissions, only because the mints are so far apart. Diocletian and Max basically traversed the entire empire, fighting one war another. It's not like mints in the East would not have encountered their likenesses.

 

I think it probably has to less do with their likeness than the overall design and legends of the new issue being fairly busy and someone deciding that sketches or descriptive instructions would not be sufficient. Still, the Cyzicus mint found a way to botch things up!

 

??

 

+1

 

The cake decorator wrote what was on the booking...

"Best wishes Susanne and underneath We will miss you."

The "and underneath" shouldn't be on the cake.....