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<p>[QUOTE=&quot;The Meat man, post: 24726847, member: 135271&quot;]Some of my recent purchases:</p><p><br /></p><p>I&#039;m always partial to a nice Claudius coin, and this one, though worn, has a good strike and eye appeal. The reverse type with Constantia is by no means scarce, but it does appear with less frequency than the Libertas type; nice ones don&#039;t show up too often. I also like the contrast between the wear and dark patina. </p><p><br /></p><p><img src="https://content.invisioncic.com/k321387/monthly_2023_10/ClaudiusasConstantiae.jpg.6cc083227c58df2ccdc50dd96076ea07.jpg" class="bbCodeImage wysiwygImage" alt="" unselectable="on" /></p><p><br /></p><p><br /></p><p><br /></p><p>The second coin is a type I&#039;ve been keeping an eye out for for a little while, ever since reading Barry Cunliffe&#039;s book <i>The Extraordinary Voyage of Pytheas the Greek</i>. The story of Pytheas is a fascinating one - a Mediterranean Greek of the early Hellenistic era travelling across Gaul, Britain, and even Iceland in the Arctic Circle! Unfortunately, though Cunliffe does a great job reconstructing the voyage, there&#039;s just not much meat on the bone when it comes to our information about Pytheas or his travels. His book, <i>On the Ocean</i>, has been lost to us and only bits of it are preserved in later writers such as Strabo the Geographer.</p><p><br /></p><p>A coin from Pytheas&#039; native Massalia, struck around the time he was active there, was too hard to pass up! This one has nicer surfaces than most I&#039;ve seen; the metal is sound and though the obverse is a bit weak it&#039;s still a very attractive specimen IMO.</p><p><br /></p><p><img src="https://content.invisioncic.com/k321387/monthly_2023_10/Massaliaobol.jpg.978ae25a077ccd5fb2a6588145ba23bd.jpg" class="bbCodeImage wysiwygImage" alt="" unselectable="on" /></p><p><br /></p><p><br /></p><p><br /></p><p>The third item of interest is not a coin but an artifact: a Roman iron nail from the hoard found at Inchtuthil, Scotland. This massive hoard of around a million nails was discovered in 1960 at the site of the old Roman fortress, which had been abandoned by the Twentieth Legion in the late 1st century AD. Holding this piece of history and contemplating its strange journey through time is what makes this hobby so captivating to me!</p><p><br /></p><p><br /></p><p><br /></p><p><img src="https://content.invisioncic.com/k321387/monthly_2023_10/Inchtuthilnail.jpg.eaaaf3045cf748ce6a9380dc5a5ab6c3.jpg" class="bbCodeImage wysiwygImage" alt="" unselectable="on" />[/QUOTE]</p><p><br /></p>

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