My lucky day!! An awesome gift arrived :)

Big big thanks to @Andres2



Pick your jaws up off the floor... they're replicas . Wonderful replicas with a story.

A couple of years ago Andres told us how a gasoline company fueled his interest in ancient coins. In 1969, when he was a young teen, British Petroleum was giving away tokens (with fill ups, I suspect?) and that year the theme was ancient Greek and Roman coins. Over the years he accumulated more of these marvelous tokens and last year he generously gave a set to Lord Marcovan. I admired the display and Andres very generously offered to send one! Yes please

Well, no good deed goes unpunished and the set he mailed in early March never arrived . We were both sad about that. Incredibly, he mailed another! We both watched it tracking across Europe, the US, Puerto Rico, and finally finally to me today. I've only rarely had any packages go missing and still hold out hope that the first one will someday show up. If so, I'll pass it on to another CoinTalk member.

Here's the set in its display, which I will frame and give a place of honor:


The coins these tokens represent, top to bottom and left to right: Croesus AV stater; Neapolis AR stater; Athens owl tetradrachm; Syracuse Demareteion tetradrachm; Syracuse decadrachm (they didn't get the relative size right on this one); Philip II of Macedon AV stater; Ptolemy I Soter tetradrachm; Carthaginian 5-shekel; Carthaginian di- or tri-shekel (reverse says tetradrachm; not the correct lingo); Roman Republic As.

I'm glad to see they chose the reverses of several of these coins instead of the obverses. More often than not I find the reverses more interesting.

Some of the tokens are actually fairly realistic. I wonder if any of them were cast from real coins? Obviously some definitely weren't. I haven't a chance of owning many of the coins shown here but I do have one and a few others are not unrealistic future targets. The Athens tet, for example. I just haven't gotten around to picking one out. The Syracuse dekadrachm, the Carthage 5 shekel... well, I'll just have to depend on other members for vicarious thrills.

The tokens are uniface, with a brief description and company name on the reverse. Here are both sides of the Croesus AV stater:



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Big thanks once again to Andres. This gift really made my day/week/month and I've really needed something happy and positive lately .

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Some of you have the authentic counterparts of coins in this display. Please show them to us

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How much ya' wanna' bet the other set will arrive??

Great job @Andres2 very well done! And a congrats to you @TIF ! Something to brighten your time getting back into the swing of things.

 

Anyone know how much a real elephant one would cost Bottom middle? I like elephant designs.....

 

I think my heart stopped...................................................

 

They get pricey pretty fast as quality and/or denomination increases. A few of us have the general type (I have an absolute bottom-of-the-barrel quarter shekel). @AncientJoe has a superb Second Punic War shekel.

CNG has a very large archive and you can find some of these rare Carthage shekels (and fractions of shekels, and multi-shekel denomination) elephant reverse coins. Here's the search results for "Carthage shekel elephant" (you'll need to click the different tabs near the top left to see all of them-- coin shop, e-auction, print auction).

These Carthage elephant shekels are very sought after not only because of the attractive design but because of the history it represents. The obverse of the coin depicts Melkart (on some coins the portrait is said to be Hannibal portrayed as Melkart). You might recall learning about the Punic Wars with Hannibal and his war elephants.

If it's just the elephant you want, there are other far less expensive ancient coin elephants. Here's the search result list for a CNG search for "elephant", without specifying the metal, issuer, or anything else.

 

very nice!!.. congrats to you @TIF and kudos to you @Andres2

 

@TIF Thanks for your informative reply, your making me want to get into ancients as you all are very helpful!!

 

Come on in, the water's fine

You might want to check out another very popular ancient coin elephant type-- those issued by Julius Caesar. They're abundant and comparatively affordable . Plus, Julius Caesar is a name known far and wide, so your non-coinie friends might even tolerate your gushing about the coin

Here are a couple of mine:




Julius Caesar. 49-48 BCE
AR denarii
Struck by the military mint traveling with Caesar.
Obv: elephant standing right, trampling on serpent; CAESAR in exergue
Rev: simpulum, sprinkler, axe, and priest's hat.
Ref: Crawford 443/1; Sydenham 1006

 

@TIF many thanks for the CNG link!! I'm not with any patients right now and am browsing through that site!!! WOWZAH! I even did a search for certain animals that I have seen like the Akragas Crab, etc. I think I will become addicted to the CNG site.

 

Welcome to your new addiction . CNG is just one of many ancient coin auction houses (although the biggest and best in the US)-- many more major companies in Europe.

To get you started:

Vcoins, an online conglomeration of coin dealers (mostly ancient coins).

Auction aggregator sites: Between these two sites you'll find most auctions which are coming up in the next month or two. You can place bids through these sites or directly with the auction houses.
https://www.numisbids.com/
https://www.sixbid.com/

If you want to dig deeper into past sales to get a better idea of prices for any given coin, get a paid account with https://www.acsearch.info/

 

Good advice..i like'em but lack'em meself!

 

Until others step up, here's the one coin I have with a counterpart in the BP token display. This Ptolemy I Soter tetradrachm is a slightly earlier issue than the one depicted in the token set.


EGYPT. Ptolemy I Soter
AR tetradrachm, 27 mm, 17.0 gm (Attic standard)
Alexandreia mint, struck 313/12 BCE
Obv: Head of the deified Alexander III to right, wearing mitra of Dionysos and elephant skin headdress, with aegis around his neck, and with horn of Ammon on his forehead
Rev: ΑΛΕΞΑΝΔΡΟΥ; Athena Alkidemos advancing right, hurling spear with her right hand and with shield over her extended left arm; to right, eagle with closed wings standing on thunderbolt to right with ΔΙ below
Ref: Svoronos 33; Zervos series D, issue XIII; SNG Copenhagen 14; BMC 7

 

You can send @TIF the bill for rehab

 

Ack!

We're all co-dependent or enablers here on the Ancients board. Don't be a buzz kill, man

 

What a wonderful gift!

 

What an excellent gift! Great job, @Andres2!

 

@Andres2 = awesome coin friend! Great gift man.

Okay I can step up with the counterpart of the lovely attic owl

 

A fabulous gift indeed - they don't make gas stations like they used to! A few of the remaining types are on my wantlist but have either not come around or I've been forced to surrender to more aggressive bidders.

Here are my genuine examples:

Kimon dekadrachm:


Croesus heavy stater:


Hannibal shekel:


Philip stater:


Athens tetradrachm:

 

ha!.. those coins are collectors items themselves!..

 

Well .. I only discovered Ancient Joe's collection today due to a link TIF added to an earlier thread (ya ..new).
Why is there only a "Like" button and not a "Love" button? OMG.