The nicest ancient I have ever seen!

Ruben's eagles VS the Athen's Owl

Ruben's eagles VS the Athen's Owl

 

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Ruben's Churchill VS Athena in Corinthian Helmut

 

Nevada's horses VS Pegasos (and refer to the quadriga depicted in post #1)

 

A ball in perspective view - that is really pushing the boundaries of the medium. :rollling:

Rueben - we like our classical coinage, you like your modern. Don't try to compare apples to oranges.

 

I like Classics. I even own some including one you gave me

 

This has to be one of the coolest Ancients I have ever seen. The obverse shows the head of Zeus and the coin was struck multiple times resulting in the doubling of the eagle on the reverse.



Ancients: Elis. Olympus. Heritage $20,700

 

How much did it go for on Heritage?

 

I updated the link to show the price!

 

Tight flan, weak and doublestruck reverse. I've seen better. Of course, it's still nice.



Elis, Olympia. 107th Olympiad. 352 BC. Sold for $95,000.

There are better auction houses than Heritage for ancient coins!

 

It must have been the in thing to do, to get your face onto a coin. This one I found a bit different.

 

I find interesting the fact that any example of the modern coins shown will do to represent their type but many of the ancients shown were not anywhere close to being the best or even average representatives of their type. Since each ancient die was cut individually (not hubbed as is the modern practice) it is always the case that some dies are better art than others. Many collectors of ancients fail to realize that fact and only some are willing to pay extra for coins of the finest style within their group. A great example is in the heads of Arathusa used by Syracuse where she changes hairstyle and smile with every die. Some work better than others. In most cases I personally find modern coins ugly and 'modern' but there are some (the Nevada quarter is one) that strike me as well done considering the limitations of relief placed on modern coin designers. Obviously there are some out there that consider 'modern' better. All I can suggest is that we all collect what we prefer.

 

Wow - that is not the type of pricing I'm used to associating with ancient coins. I remember reading that article where the undergraduate student on a an exhibition accidentally liquefied about 2 dozen coins in an acid bath because she forgot to pay attention. And then she blogged about it.

FWIW, I saw dozens of examples of that quality at the The University of Pennsylvania Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology.

 

http://www.penn.museum/collections/search.php?term=coin&submit_term=Submit+Query&images=yes

I was hoping to see dozens of quality coins but the photos are embarrassingly bad.

 

Thats nothing. They have hundreds of top quality coins spaning about 12 centuries, and no photos

 

So this is not a bad writeup on some of the Upenn collection

http://www.penn.museum/sites/Greek_World/types.html