Message:

<p>[QUOTE=&quot;The Meat man, post: 25249576, member: 135271&quot;]To complete the Flavian Dynasty, I needed a good Vespasian denarius. But even though I came across a number of possible candidates, none of them really seemed to &#039;speak&#039; to me, if you know what I mean.</p><p><br /></p><p>Then I noticed a particularly fine example scheduled to be auctioned off later that month and put it on my watchlist. The bidding stayed pretty low so I was hopeful of being able to snag it for a decent price. Ha, think again! The evening before the auction was to go live, I decided to make my move - so I placed a bid about double what the current bid was. Not enough. Both my bids and a feeling of desperation kept inching up and up as I tried to top the winning bid.</p><p><br /></p><p>Sigh. Yes, I finally topped the max bid, but by that point we were both in the stratosphere, almost double what I had previously decided would be my max bid, and it was with feelings of annoyance, guilt, hope, and resignation that I finally closed the web browser and headed for bed.</p><p><br /></p><p>Well, to make a long story short, my winning bid held - there were no additional bids placed, so I won the coin! But whew. I am afraid I may have overpaid for it, but oh well, it really is one of the finest portrait denarii of Vespasian I&#039;ve ever seen! Plus, a rare type, rated &quot;R&quot; in RIC. So I will now present what might be the best yet in my &#039;quality&#039; collection:</p><p><br /></p><p>[ATTACH=full]1610109[/ATTACH] </p><p><br /></p><p style="text-align: center"><i>VESPASIAN, AD 69-79</i></p><p><i><p style="text-align: center"><i>AR Denarius (18.35mm, 3.26g, 6h)</i></p></i></p><p style="text-align: center"><i><i>Struck AD 74. Rome mint</i></p></i></p><p style="text-align: center"><i><i>Obverse: IMP CAESAR VESP AVG, laureate head of Vespasian right</i></p></i></p><p style="text-align: center"><i><i>Reverse: PONTIF MAXIM around winged caduceus</i></p></i></p><p style="text-align: center"><i><i>References: RIC II 686 (R), RCV 2306</i></p></i></p><p style="text-align: center"><i><i>Lightly toned and lustrous. A magnificent portrait of Vespasian, and an exemplar of the veristic style of Flavian portraiture.</i></p><p></i>[/QUOTE]</p><p><br /></p>

Your name or email address:

Do you already have an account?

• No, create an account now.
• Yes, my password is:
• Forgot your password?

Stay logged in