Mystery ancient coin I bought 11 years ago...

An empty beer bottle is my guess!

 

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Nerva's kinda grumpy, too:

 

Man, 6 hours to go and I'm nervous as hell. I've tried to recall por the past 18 hours whether I actually left anything in that bank box or not, and for the life of me I can't remember at all. Too much partying is bad for remembering things.

 

Leaving for the bank now. . Wish me luck.

 

Doesn't look grumpy to me....but this is what I found....






I think I'm going to donate it to an educational program....like the one where you can donate ancients to schools to teach kids about the ancient world (I'll have to Google it up). After all, I didn't miss it for 11 years, so I'm sure it will find better use there. It certainly doesn't add anything noteworthy to my collection, so I want someone else to be able to cherish it more than I ever did

 

That is a seriously nice coin. Glad you will do something nice with it.

 

Trajan. And all along I thought it was going to be Gordian III. A Gordie was actually my first coin I bought when I was 10 years old - for $30.

Like this one:



The above coin hammered for $37. So think twice if you think Gordie's are going to be a valuable investment. I should have started investing in mutual funds when I was 10.

 

Well, that was fun!

 

I have to take better photos later, but here it is outside the holder....the obverse is decent, the reverse is blah



And just in case anyone is curious what else was inside the box...there was a pack of desiccant, there were two $100 government bonds, and an old Bank of America receipt from 2007 when I opened the account for the box. That's it....nothing that exciting.

 

I don't believe it. I think you took the emply beer bottle out and replaced it with the Trajan!!!!

 

Well, don't matter if you believe it or not, but that's exactly what I found in there.

Could one of you guys do me the favor if attributing it for me? And what do you think about donating it to these people? Are they above board?

http://ancientcoinsforeducation.org/component/option,com_frontpage/Itemid,1/

 

Denarius, issued 103-111.
Obv: IMP TRAIANO AVG GER DAC P M TR P COS V P P, laureate bust right, aegis on far shoulder
Rev: SPQR OPTIMO PRINCIPI, Genius, naked except for cloak around waist, standing left, holding cornucopiae while sacrificing out of a patera over a lighted altar.
RIC 183.

 

It's a neat coin, in that it exactly mirrors one of the types later used on tetrarchal folles. In fact, I think it may be its earliest occurrence. Edit: nope, there's a very rare denarius of this type for Vespasian, RIC 1356.

 

A nice one @Sallent . I like the toning on it.

 

That is pretty exciting @Sallent! I just read through this thread. Shame I missed it as it was happening. I was busy wrangling 15 boys at cub scout camp. It has been an exhausting week to say the least haha. Glad to have an interesting read now that I finally have a few seconds to mysef

 

In case anyone is interested, the flan is18.5mm on average, and the coin weights 2.74g.

That is a little underweight. I would expect an average of 3.1g or 3.2g for denarii of this period, but with the wear and some crystalization and porosity...I don't think that's an abnormal weight. I can definitely see some crystalization through the flan splits at the rim.

I'm going to contact the charity tomorrow to arrange the shipping.

 

Can't believe I missed this thread, and was itching to post that I thought it would be a Trajan coin, only to find I was late. Nice find, and good cause!