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<p>[QUOTE=&quot;pprp, post: 8115084, member: 94602&quot;]This year was a very challenging one, as auction competition and hammer prices increased a lot. I was at the verge of dropping the hobby, but in the end, I took as a personal challenge to fight against the dealer/advisor hordes who are backed by seemingly endless resources. In the end, I can’t tell if I was successful or not. There were hundreds of coins that I failed to get; those coins sold in my opinion too high and I cannot find any credible reasons to support such prices. I saw none of those in CT, where did they all go!? At the same time I won a few important or very rare coins (IMHO) for reasonable prices and there I also cannot explain the lack of interest. I don’t believe in lucky moments; every single coin, cheap or expensive, rare or not, important or not, beautiful or ugly, in well-known or unknown auctions, has been thoroughly screened by numerous interested parties. There are certainly reasons nobody cared for the coins I won; it is me that can&#039;t understand why. This reminds me a conversation I had with the greatest collector of our times about a coin I got some time ago; I was commenting that the coin was of an unrecorded die combination and I received the reply “who cares”.</p><p><br /></p><p>Enough nagging, let’s move to the coins. The sequence just follows the usual order in catalogs, so numbering does not reflect their order of importance to me.</p><p><br /></p><p>1. <b>SICILY, Leontinoi. </b>476-466 BC. AR Tetradrachm. Bearded charioteer driving quadriga galloping to right; above, Nike flying right to crown the horses / ΛΕΟΝΤΙΝΟΝ (retrograde and partially upside down) Lion’s head with open jaws to right; around, four grains of barley. Boehringer, Leontinoi 2; <b>Weber 1373 (this coin)</b>.</p><p><br /></p><p><i>ex- auction Florange – Ciani 17-21.02.1925 (Colonel Allote de la Fuye), lot 109; Naville IV, 17.06.1922, lot 257; from the Weber collection, no 1373; from the collection of Baron Granieri, Noto, Province of Syracuse, 1889.</i></p><p><i><br /></i></p><p><i>[ATTACH=full]1412209[/ATTACH] </i></p><p><i><br /></i></p><p><i><br /></i></p><p><b>2.</b> <b>SICILY, Syracuse. </b>Deinomenid Tyranny. 485-478 BC. AR Tetradrachm. Charioteer, wearing a long chiton and holding a kentron in his right hand and the reins in his left, driving a slow quadriga to right, Nike flying right, crowning horses / ΣVRAKOΣIO-N, head of Arethusa facing to right, wearing a pearl-diadem and a necklace, four dolphins swimming clockwise around. <b>Boehringer</b> <b>205.4</b> (<b>this coin</b>); <b>Boehringer</b> <b>205.5</b> (<b>this coin</b>).</p><p><br /></p><p>It was interesting to discover that this coin is actually referenced by Boehringer as two separate coins i.e., 205.4 and 205.5. The 205.5 is coming from the John Glas Sandeman collection, while 205.4 from the G. Picard collection. The plaster cast used in the Sambon sale shows some weakness on two of the dolphins, therefore confusing Boehringer who registered it as a different coin.</p><p><br /></p><p><i>ex- Santamaria auction 12.10.1949, lot 331 (Conte Alessandro Magnaguti collection); Schulman auction 07.06.1937, lot 125 (Mathey collection); Hamburger auction 96, 25.10.1932, lot 54; Sambon auction 14-16.03.1923, lot 325 (Picard collection); Sotheby’s auction 13-20.06.1911, lot 52 (Sandeman collection).</i></p><p><i><br /></i></p><p><i>[ATTACH=full]1412206[/ATTACH] </i></p><p><i><br /></i></p><p><br /></p><p><b>3.</b> <b>ATTICA, Athens. </b>515-490 BC. AR Tetradrachm. Archaic head of Athena right, wearing disk earring and crested Attic helmet decorated with chevron and dot pattern / Owl standing right, head facing; olive sprig to left, AΘE to right; all within incuse square. Seltman group L (A-/P283).</p><p><br /></p><p><i>ex- Vinchon auction 13.04.1985, lot 281.</i></p><p><i><br /></i></p><p><i>[ATTACH=full]1412205[/ATTACH] </i></p><p><i><br /></i></p><p><br /></p><p><b>4.</b> <b>LESBOS, Mytilene. </b>521-478 BC. AR Drachm. Forepart of winged bull right / Quadripartite incuse square divided diagonally. Imhoof-Blumer Griechische Münzen 804 (pl. 13, 25), same obverse die but different incuse punch; probably unique.</p><p><br /></p><p><i>ex- NAC auction 126, 17.11.2021, lot 217; CNG 88, lot 325; Leu auction 65, 21-22.05.1996, lot 202.</i></p><p><i><br /></i></p><p><i>[ATTACH=full]1412204[/ATTACH]</i></p><p><i>&nbsp;</i></p><p><br /></p><p><b>5.</b> <b>ISLANDS off CARIA, KOS. </b>280-250 BC. AR Tetradrachm. Timoxenos, magistrate. Head of Herakles right, wearing lion skin / Crab; KΩION above, TIMOΞENOΣ and club below; all within dotted square. Requier Group II, Series 2, 25a (D7/R22) = Ingvaldsen Issue XIV, 29a (O10/R24) = Stefanaki Issue 17, 789 (this coin); HGC 6, 1308, otherwise unpublished. One of two known.</p><p><br /></p><p><i>This was a particularly unwanted coin. Elsen was trying to sell it between 1993-2000 in 11 different sales and FPLs (!!!). It then started another journey in CNG auctions, until I decided to put it out of its misery. </i></p><p><br /></p><p>[ATTACH=full]1412203[/ATTACH] </p><p><br /></p><p><br /></p><p>Please feel free to post comments, opinions, coins or anything you find relevant.</p><p><b>Wishing a happy 2022 to all !</b>[/QUOTE]</p><p><br /></p>

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