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<p>[QUOTE=&quot;Blake Davis, post: 2991759, member: 91820&quot;]This is a more complete description of a subject I mentioned in my introductory thread: Although my collecting interests eventually resolved down to sestertii of the family of Septimius Severus (including Elagabalus, but excluding Severus Alexander - I also like the travel series of Hadrian) before that I collected a much wider variety of sestertius/sestertii - the rule imposed was as close to true VF, and a (bronze) sestertius for everyone who struck one in every rank (Caesar or Augustus) in which a sestertius was struck, and in every style. As I mentioned in a prior post this was an impossible task for my limited means, but one exception to VF grade rule I made was for Geta as caesar - I just wanted ONE, any condition would do.</p><p><br /></p><p>&nbsp; And so I waited.&nbsp; It took literally years before I finally found a Geta sestertius, as caesar[ATTACH=full]738258[/ATTACH] with a Securitas reverse RIC 114.&nbsp; The coin turned out to be so horribly tooled on the obverse that I returned it. I later noticed the same coin being offered at a European catalog sale for a third of the price I paid - and it didn&#039;t sell. So, another coin destroyed by tooling.</p><p><br /></p><p>In any event my search went on. A few years ago or so I finally found one offered by CNG, but in a high grade, and I figured it would sell for much more than I could afford.&nbsp; It did go for about $1,750.00, something that I MIGHT have been able to afford (and which would have required a sell off of many of my other items) but I simply missed it, didn&#039;t think it would sell for that price.&nbsp; The coin shortly thereafter sold for many multiples of that - obviously there are people who buy simply ancient coins for investment purposes - more power to them.</p><p><br /></p><p>Finally after 16 years, I finally found my Geta sestertius as caesar - the one pictured above - RIC 124(b) bought in late 2016.&nbsp; Not a great example, and certainly not true VF, but more than acceptable.&nbsp; Naturally it was offered on ebay by a dealer that does not generally deal in ancient coins, but was getting involved in a small way.&nbsp; I instantly bought the coin which had been up for sale for about a minute, for $500, which is about as much as I like to spend on any coin - which of course made my initial collecting goal totally absurd -but I did pretty well all in all, as I hope to show over the coming months.</p><p><br /></p><p>Of course I wish that I could afford to pay more but things like the kids college, the mortgage, and food, and a certain better half which keep getting in the way.</p><p><br /></p><p>The irony of this story is this: about a month after buying my Geta, a nicer example shows up on a European catalog sale site - Geta as caesar with priestly objects. It sold for 360 euros - and I very foolishly skipped it because I figured I had one already - hard to imagine being such a fool.&nbsp; Now that I have one - of course - two would be better!&nbsp; It is that collecting urge - those of you cursed with it understand exactly what i am talking about.</p><p><br /></p><p>I should add that one - with a museum quality Castor reverse (RIC 111) did show up but this was ultra high grade and sold for $10,000 or so.&nbsp; Still that makes all of four coins (not counting the tooled one which I do not consider to be an ancient coin) in 16 years of searching, and none at all for a stretch of 12 years.&nbsp; In fact, I have noticed that plenty of major sestertii collections including the 1995 Friedrich sale of over 2000 sestertii, did not have a single example of Geta as caesar.</p><p><br /></p><p>So perhaps, with one sestertii I am ahead of the game.</p><p><br /></p><p>Nevertheless, now that my collecting interests have narrowed a bit, so has my insistence on collecting only coins in true VF, which is good since lower grade sestertii have bucked the trend toward higher prices. And of course, i think about the coins passed up - but as a fellow collector friend in Seattle reminds me - there is ALWAYS another one coming along.</p><p><br /></p><p>But I sure didn&#039;t expect that having this coin would only lead to wanting another one just as much - or even more![/QUOTE]</p><p><br /></p>

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