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<p>[QUOTE=&quot;Severus Alexander, post: 8097326, member: 84744&quot;]Dear Coin friends,</p><p><br /></p><p>This post has been a long time coming, both because it’s hard to write and because I don’t like to impart sorrowful news to our wonderful board.&nbsp; But as the holiday season approaches, I think I’d benefit a lot from my coin buddies’ support.&nbsp; (For the purposes of this post, let’s say that a “like” is equivalent to the “caring” reaction on Facebook.&nbsp; Otherwise those likes could be kinda awkward, I know!)</p><p><br /></p><p>The sorrowful news is hard to sugarcoat: I have terminal stage IV cancer.&nbsp; It turns out that a generally benign type of skin cancer – basal cell carcinoma, probably many of you have had one – can metastasize (i.e. travel within the body) on very rare occasions, and I’m one of the unlucky ones.&nbsp; The spectre of this possibility first raised its ugly head in July, when I had a bone scan to investigate some recent pain I’d been experiencing.&nbsp; The scan showed evidence of bone metastases, which are very bad news - basically incurable.&nbsp; This was confirmed by a bone biopsy the following month.</p><p><br /></p><p>For a month or two, beginning not long before AMCC 3 closed, my life took on a nightmarish quality as I tried to assimilate the horrific facts.&nbsp; I, barely 50 years old with a loving wife and teenaged kids, was going to have to say goodbye to them, to all my family and friends, to everything.&nbsp; Needless to say it was not easy, but it’s amazing what the human mind do in the way of accommodating to a new reality.&nbsp; I also had help from family and friends, and from a few people here who were aware of my predicament - thanks especially to [USER=56859]@TIF[/USER] and [USER=57495]@zumbly[/USER].&nbsp; The nightmarish quality of every waking minute receded, and while there was and still is plenty of sorrow, some joy returned to my world.</p><p><br /></p><p>One of those joys is my coin collection.&nbsp; Sometime in August I mentioned to my wife that there didn’t seem much point adding more coins to my collection any more, so I’d devote my coin time only to organizing, writing, and labeling, getting things ready to sell.&nbsp; She broke down crying, as did I.&nbsp; (How many of you can claim your spouse cried and cried when you said you weren’t going to buy any more coins? <img src="styles/default/xenforo/clear.png" class="mceSmilieSprite mceSmilie8" alt=":D" unselectable="on" unselectable="on" />)&nbsp; She made me realize that I should continue to do the things that bring me joy, and building my collection is certainly one of those things!&nbsp; So I relented, and my life improved.&nbsp; Continuing to collect is a manifestation of hope.</p><p><br /></p><p>Hope is an important thing.&nbsp; My pain increased quite a bit from September through November, and I had a few weeks of absolute hell brought on by a simple cold.&nbsp; It took a while to nail down the ID on my cancer, because bone samples are hard to read.&nbsp; But now I’m receiving immunotherapy treatment (second treatment earlier this week, no side effects yet!), which holds the promise of extending my life many months and possibly years.&nbsp; There’s even an outside chance, very low but not zero, that I could beat this thing.&nbsp; I will certainly be fighting it with all I’ve got, just like <a href="https://www.cointalk.com/search/6608535/" class="internalLink ProxyLink" data-proxy-href="https://www.cointalk.com/search/6608535/">stevex6</a> has, and he is still with us (though sadly no longer part of our board.&nbsp; Bring him back, mods, we miss him terribly!)</p><p><br /></p><p>Now for some coins.&nbsp; I think I’ll use this thread to post additions to my collection that I regard as important milestones for completeness.&nbsp; Some of you might recall my <a href="https://www.cointalk.com/threads/history-checklist-the-ancient-world-in-200-coins.313927/" class="internalLink ProxyLink" data-proxy-href="https://www.cointalk.com/threads/history-checklist-the-ancient-world-in-200-coins.313927/">500 BCE to 500 CE checklist</a>, I still have plenty of holes to fill there; and there are other milestone coins on my wishlist that I hope will eventually appear below.&nbsp; My earliest collecting theme was Roman-Byzantine history, and there are just 15 coins remaining that I think are essential to sort-of “complete” that part of my collection.&nbsp; (I lack only 7 emperors I deem essential: Didius Julianus, Pescennius Niger, Balbinus, Pupienus, Marius, Michael IV, and John V Palaeologus.)&nbsp; Unfortunately my collection covering 500-1500 CE will have to remain somewhat sketchy, but I’ll still be working on it.&nbsp; Wish me luck!</p><p><br /></p><p>The most important coin I’ve added recently is this portrait denarius of Julius Caesar (my quickie cell phone shot doesn’t really do the coin justice):</p><p>[ATTACH=full]1407666[/ATTACH] </p><p>After having sold my previous example in AMCC1 (I really wanted a portrait JC in that sale!) I was beginning to despair of replacing it with a reasonably priced example with a nice portrait.&nbsp; I was overjoyed to snag this one for only 640 euros in October.</p><p><br /></p><p>One other coin I’d like to show is this dichalkon from the city of Cherson in the Tauric Chersonesos, c. 350-330 BCE:</p><p>[ATTACH=full]1407668[/ATTACH] </p><p><font size="3">Obv: Artemis Parthenos driving quadriga to right, holding torch in her right hand and reins in left. Rev: XEP Hoplite, nude but for conical helmet, crouching left, wearing round shield on his left arm and holding spear in his right hand. HGC 3.2, 2080. SNG BM Black Sea 734. From the Pontos Euxeinos Collection.</font></p><p><br /></p><p>This was one of the last coins I bought before we were certain I had cancer, and it has come to symbolize to me my fight against the disease.&nbsp; I love the depiction of the hoplite.</p><p><br /></p><p><b>Please post your coins depicting fighters, or issued by those who fought against the odds (Julius Caesar being a prime example)!</b></p><p><br /></p><p><br /></p><p>P.S. I welcome your pm’s, but I can’t promise to respond quickly.&nbsp; For my own mental health, I need to pace myself when writing about&nbsp; my cancer.&nbsp; I’ve tried very hard to not let it take over my life and dominate my thoughts, with considerable success.&nbsp; Even if I don’t reply right away, know that I appreciate your kind words so very much!&nbsp; And thanks to all of you for enriching my life over the past few years… and hopefully for a few years – or more – yet to come.[/QUOTE]</p><p><br /></p>

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