Show Us Your (Alexandrian) Tets

Sounds like a pirate coin .

 

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Here's a few fun ones....

A silvered 3rd century tetradrachm?! (yeah it's silvered under the green and dirt) Anyone else seen a silvered 3rd century tetradrachm?

Aurelian Emmett 3924

A balding Carus... look at that forehead!

Carus Emmett 3996

 

I'm not sure why I stopped getting notifications on this thread...

Anyways, FFIVN and I spent part of the day identifying a few new Alexandrian tets and we wanted to share:



Antoninus Pius
Tetradrachm of Alexandria
Year 4, AD 140/1
Obverse: ΑVΤ Κ Τ ΑΙΛ ΑΔΡ ΑΝΤⲰΝΙΝΟϹ, laureate bust right, wearing cuirass and paludamentum
Reverse: L Δ, Dikaiosyne seated, left, holding scales and cornucopia



Gallienus
Potin Tetradrachm of Alexandria
Year 15 = 267-268 AD
Obverse: AVT K Π ΛIK ΓAΛΛIHNOC CEB, laureate and cuirassed bust right
Reverse: Eagle standing facing, head left with wreath in beak; palm branch left, LIE to right
ex: @Justin Lee



Claudius II Gothicus
Potin Tetradrachm of Alexandria
Year 3 = 270 AD
Obverse: AYT K KΛAYΔIOC CEB, laureate, draped and cuirassed bust right
Reverse: L-Γ, eagle standing right with wreath in its beak, holding palm branch under far wing.

 

A new Alexandria tetradrachm arrived today -- only my fifth, and none of them is in the best condition but I really do like them all, especially the reverses. I'm sure that the fact that I've collected ancient Egyptian antiquities sporadically over the last 40 years or so, and have been visiting and enjoying the Egyptian collection at the Metropolitan Museum of Art since I was in grade school, has something to do with that.

Antoninus Pius Billon Tetradrachm, Year 12 (148-149 AD), Alexandria, Egypt Mint. Obv. Laureate, draped, and cuirassed bust right, ΑΝΤѠΝ(Ɛ)ΙΝΟϹ ϹƐΒ ƐVϹƐΒ (counterclockwise from upper right) / Draped bust of Zeus-Ammon right, crowned with disk [disk partially off flan], L ΔѠΔƐΚΑΤΟV [Year 12 spelled out] (clockwise from lower left). RPC IV.4 Online 13625 [temporary number] (see https://rpc.ashmus.ox.ac.uk/coins/4/13625) [this coin is Specimen 13, ex. Emporium Hamburg 71, 8 May 2014, lot 186; see https://rpc.ashmus.ox.ac.uk/coin/112517]; Emmett 1442.12; Milne 1972; Dattari (Savio) 2408; Köln (Geissen) 1588. 23 mm., 12.60 g. (Purchased from Herakles Numismatics, Sept 2020).



Do people agree with me that this is the very same coin as the one listed as Specimen 13 for RPC Online 13625, ex. Hamburg Emporium 2014 (see details above)? Here are the photos of that specimen. It seems pretty clear to me that it's the same coin, although I think the photos on RPC (presumably from the Emporium Hamburg auction) are better than my seller's photo:

 

They certainly look dang close @DonnaML !
That is a great looking coin too!

 

@DonnaML......Very nice coin.......I agree it looks to be the same coin.

 

Thanks to both of you. I think perhaps the engraver was a seer, because that chin makes Antoninus Pius look more like Maximinus Thrax than himself!

 

Or perhaps, AP was a distant relative of Jay Leno

 

Here's a Tacitus I recently got...


And a Claudius II with a "better" portrait for him...



And a Diocletian with an uncommonly nice obverse and a so-so reverse...

 

I like that Tacitus. I recently bid on one but was blown away at the last minute.

 

It wasn't me, I promise!

 

For a while now, it seems that all my new coins are either from the Roman Republic, or are Alexandrian tetradrachms from Roman Egypt. (No new Imperials, perhaps because continuing to check off the Late Roman emperors I don't have doesn't interest me that much, and the handful of earlier ones I'd like to have are too expensive for me.) I guess I have very different standards for Republican coins as opposed to coins from Alexandria. As to the former, I'm a little bit of a condition snob: even though I can't really afford "the best," I want both sides to be in good condition with legends pretty much intact. Not so for the latter: I don't care much about the condition of the obverses, and am interested primarily in reverse types I don't already have, regardless of which emperor issued them.

Like this one, which I bought recently because I liked the reverse -- the crocodile is nice, and one can actually see Nilus's foot! -- and didn't already have that type. The fact that the obverse is poor didn't bother me much.

Hadrian, Billon Tetradrachm, Year 22 (137/138 AD), Alexandria, Egypt Mint. Obv. Laureate bust right, ΑΥΤ ΚΑΙϹ ΤΡΑΙΑ ΑΔΡΙΑΝΟϹ ϹƐΒ / Rev. Nilus reclining left on rocks, holding reed in right hand and cornucopiae in left; crocodile below; L KB (Year 22) in left field. RPC [Roman Provincial Coinage] Vol. III 6254 (2015); RPC III Online at https://rpc.ashmus.ox.ac.uk/coins/3/6254 ; Emmett 876.22* [Emmett, Keith, Alexandrian Coins (Lodi, WI, 2001)]; Milne 1569 [Milne, J., A Catalogue of the Alexandrian Coins in the Ashmolean Museum (Oxford, 1933, reprints with supplement by Colin M. Kraay)]; Köln.1241 [Geissen, A., Katalog alexandrinischer Kaisermünzen, Köln, Band II (Hadrian-Antoninus Pius) (Cologne, 1978, corrected reprint 1987)]. 24 mm., 12.9 g.





* Emmett actually doesn't list this type for Year 22, for reasons unknown. I have no basis for believing that that year is particularly rare for this type, although I was able to find only two examples on acsearch.

 

That is a cool reverse @DonnaML !
The obverse is a bit mushy and you can’t read all of the legend but you can still tell who it is. That’s important to me.

 

Your's is still nicer than mine... And with an unpublished year ta boot! Very nice!

Mine (I can only believe) is the more common RY 20, and I also dig the croc! I feel like I can see the rocks between the croc and Nilus' boot-tay. And it's a left facing portrait which is cool.

 

I've seen some descriptions of this reverse as showing Nilus seated on a crocodile! I don't think that's accurate for any examples I've seen. And it's nice that the rocks in between are visible on yours.

 

Just in yesterday, my latest tet - Salonina with a quasi-Princess Leia hairdo:


Salonina Billon Tetradrachm
(Year 12 / 264-265 A.D.)
Alexandria Mint
KOPNЄΛΙΑ CAΛΩNЄINA CЄB draped bust of Salonina to right. / L / IB Eirene standing left, holding small palm branch in right hand and transverse scepter with left.
Dattari 5331; Geissen 2969.
(9.95 grams / 22 mm)

 

Here's an interesting type:
Hadrian (117-138 AD) Ae Drachm ; Dated regnal year 19 (34mm, 22.7gms)

Obv: AVT KAIC TPAIAN AΔPIANOC CEB; Laureate and draped bust right
Rev: Isis enthroned right suckling the infant Harpokrates crowned with skhent and holding club, all within distyle temple; L – IΓ in exergue

Ref: Emmett 966

 

@Ryro, those are all that good, but, "Here are some of my Alexandrian texts" ...Was that Spell-check, by any remote chance?

 

...Was that like, you do Nike

@Alegandron, did that work like, you do Athena, and then you need Nikes to get away? Sorry for the insinuation....