1. I write to ask if someone with a volume of Vlasto (more properly O Ravel’s Descriptive Catalogue of the Collection of Tarentine Coins formed by M P Vlasto) will please look up or show us the image of coin number 755 to see if it shares the same dies as the nomos I’ve just purchased in CNG’s e460. 2. Here’s my coin Calabria, Tarentum. c 280 – 272 BC. AR nomos, 19.5mm, 6.48g Rev: Nude youth, crowning horse he rides to right; above left, crowning Nike. ΣI above horse to left; ΛY below, ΘE below foreleg Obv: Nude dolphin rider to left, holding kantharos in left hand and trident in right hand. TAΡAΣ below. Vlasto 755 3. I know that Ravel’s book is not a die study. However I haven’t been able to locate any other sales or images of Vlasto 755. I couldn't find it on the ANS site nor is it listed in Evans's Horsemen. That’s why there might be a chance of my coin sharing the same dies as the one from Vlasto’s collection. 4. Unfortunately I don’t have a copy of Ravel's book and cannot find it online. 5. So I hope a CT member with access to the book can either compare my coin to the one in Vlasto’s collection, or show us a scan of this part of the plate from the book. Thanks for your consideration. D
Did you ask CNG? You paid them 300$ of commission so they could spend 5 minutes looking into this for you...
It's not Vlasto 755 at all, but Vlasto 760. In fact... it appears to be the actual Vlasto 760. Congrats!
1. Thank you very much @pprp and @zumbly for your responses. 2. Yes I did phone CNG after purchasing this lot (and another) to ask if they could assist by looking up this coin in their copy of Vlasto. Their response was that their cataloguer would have listed any such information. They didn't have any interest in checking. That's why I went to the great CT community. 3. and @zumbly I really appreciate you posting the scan from Vlasto. This evening after work I'll spend a bit of time to look at my coin and the scan in detail. Again thanks D
Nice coin, very cool! If you dont mind, could I post mine and see if someone has a scan for Vlasto 440? I also just bought this from CNG. CALABRIA, Tarentum. Circa 344-340 BC. AR Nomos (20mm, 7.64 g, 1h). Warrior, nude, holding shield and spear, dismounting from horse rearing left; |- below / Phalanthos, nude, holding helmet, riding dolphin left; below, I above waves. Fischer-Bossert Group 47, 653l (V252/R505 – this coin); Vlasto 440 (same obv. die); HN Italy 876. Deep old iridescent tone, overstruck on uncertain type. EF. From the Matthew Curtis Collection. Ex Numismatica Ars Classica 7 (2 March 1994), lot 155.
1. No problem @kazuma78 - maybe we can start a support group! 2. Semi-seriously though, as I see it there are a couple of issues that have caused problems, at least for myself a) my interest in determining provenance is not shared by suppliers. The answer is not as simple as 'find a another vendor.' As you can see, in this case I purchased from one of the most highly reputed in the business. I understand that there are many considerations here - privacy, taxes, security as well as business interests b) many of the reference works are inaccessible for those of us who cannot get to specialised libraries. This is not the place for a rant about copyright. However I for one would be helpful if there was a way for not-for-profit access to scholarly works that didn't rely on the goodwill of CT members. ... thanks for listening. D
I agree, I live in the boondocks so there isn't a good way to access that kind of info for me without buying books, which for specialized books can be prohibitively expensive, especially when I would prefer to spend the equivalent money on coins.
Next time send them an email, don't phone! Whoever picked up was certainly a secretary who wanted to get rid of you. So now send them an email to tell them that their cataloguer catalogued it wrong without even opening vlasto and that you ripped them because it's a vlasto plate coin. They did a very bad service to both the consignor and you (you just got lucky). And with all due respect to both posters in this topic, if you bid 2-3x the estimate better know what you are doing i.e. buy the book or visit a library
Sorry @pprp but I need to set the record correct 1. Your first assumption is wrong. I called and spoke with one of the numismatists who has a great deal of experience. He knows my interest and is one who has handled my coins as a consignor as well as a purchaser. 2. Secondly, I like to think I know what I am doing. Perhaps as a bit of proof, I expect that this evening I may be able to post a new die-linkage for this part of the Tarentine coinage. D
Lacking a decent library, I always try acsearch. I found one of each in a quick search: Vlasto 755 https://www.acsearch.info/search.html?id=596242 Vlasto 760 https://www.acsearch.info/search.html?id=6193771
Eh, those estimates seem to be like whose line is it anyway. Where descriptions are made up, and the estimates dont matter. Lol
