I present the leaning tower of hellenistic silver Okay okay I'm going to bed. I guess post something greek or something silver or just make fun of what a nerd I am. Cheers!
You're a complete nerd, and in good company with many others, here. Hey, you can trot that photo out two months from now and call it a "Christmas tree".
OK, we won't debate the "nerd" issue, but, when I saw your display, which is awesome, my immediate thought was a Christmas tree. If I were to use it as a holiday card, I would be careful who I sent it to...
I wish I could personally admire all of the ones I posted above. Alas, due to the revolving nature of my collection, all but two of those are “bygones” now. Only the Taras owl and the Ptolemy VI didrachm remain with me in the latest incarnation of my Eclectic Box collection. At least the Amisos owl, posthumous ATG tet, and Seleucid tet are in my oldest numismatic friend @Aethelred’s collection now, so I do still get to visit them once a year. The Corinthian stater and stunning little Ch. MS Perseus drachm belong to @kazuma78 now. He too has acquired some of my past best. The apparent moral of the story: become a good friend to @lordmarcovan, and you might occasionally get to cherrypick his collection when he needs to sell something! I need more Greek silver, and probably also need to hold on to what I have a bit more tightly! These days I can usually only afford the smaller pieces. There haven’t ever been many tetradrachms in my collection. Usually it’s been the smaller fractions.
BTW, though I have not always been a fan of the type (for some inexplicable reason), I quite like that cistophorus you have (Row 6, right), and the portrait and grade on that Seleucid (Row 7, center) are impressive. There are quite a few other interesting and/or impressive pieces, too. Your "Christmas tree" is quite the "tower of power", as I see it!
Absolutely love the Christmas three. I would probably do similar things with my coins but I don't like taking them out from the albums too often. But here is a Thasos double
Well, it was, 16 years ago. It has since gained something of a small foothold in certain online numismatic circles. (Not so much in the context of ancients, though, usually.)
I like the concept and see it as increasingly useful now that so many people seem to favor fully scrubbed ancients somehow fooling themselves into believing that surfaces 2000 years old will have natural sparkle. By modern standards, all ancients are 'details' coins. The question is whether the cleaning/conservation was done skillfully or with a floor buffer. I have always had a fondness for coins cleaned so as to have contrast between the high points and the low. I am not so naive as to believe that these popped out of the dirt this way but I am not from the group that believes worthwhile coins had to spend their entire life in some drawer hermetically sealed from the elements. A few: I believe surfaces, 'natural' or 'assisted' are more important to a coin than the letter grade. Contrasting surfaces can be 'eye candy'.
I agree, which is why I came up with that shorthand term so long ago. Case in point: though I didn’t especially need this Claudius as for my own collection, I nevertheless scooped it up from a recent @ValiantKnight offering, simply because I liked the look of it, with those nice non-porous-looking surfaces and the lightly contrasting patina. I thought it had “character”. A similar rationale was involved in the purchase of this Antoninus Pius sestertius, which is also well worn but with nice surfaces and contrast. I did add that one to my collection, unhesitatingly.
@dougsmit on of your pictures in this thread, you hi lited the Roman numerals LXXII. Could you explain the significance of the numerals or point me in the direction of information. Thank you
Thank you! Most appreciated. I'll give you some closer ups... here: I agree most cists are boring, but not all! I love this antiochus VII, and it was also one of the cheapest tets I've ever bought. only 100 GBP. It was worth it, even after being nickled and dimed to death.
