I put in a (relatively) low bid on a 50-Nummi coin of King Hilderic of the Vandals in Africa. I won the coin unexpectedly and thought that this is a good occasion for a Vandals thread. The Vandals were originally an East Germanic people, who lived primarily on the territory of modern Poland. In late AD 406 the Vandals crossed the river Rhine at Moguntiacum (Mainz) in modern Germany into Roman Gaul. After some years of war und plundering they ended up in southern Spain. However, their position there was precarious because they were under constant thread of attack of the Goths, their traditional enemies who operated on behalf of the Romans. Hence, in AD 429 the Vandals under King Geiseric took the opportunity to cross the Mediterranean to Africa, where they rapidly seized all major Roman towns and established a kingdom at Carthage, which lasted for more than 100 years. My coin was struck by the penultimate Vandalic king Hilderic, who was a grandson of Geiseric. Hilderic was in his 50s or 60s when he came to the throne in AD 523. He established favourable relations with Eastern Rome and alienated the Arian Vandalic elites by favouring Catholicism. His latter action contributed to his downfall and murder in AD 530, by his successor Gelimer. The coin is a 50-Nummi piece, ie. a silver coin that was worth 50 of the smallest bronze denominations. Obv.: DN HILDI-RIC REX Rev.: FELIX-KARTG Mint: Carthage Date: AD 523 - 530 Post your Vandalic coins or any coins that relate to the kingdom of the Vandals.
congrats...that is a nice example one of my mediocre Vandal issues-- VANDALS. Semi-autonomous coinage of Carthage. A.D. 480-533. Æ 21 Nummi (21x23mm 7.7g ). OBV: KART HAGO Soldier standing; REV: Horse’s head above mark of value XXI. MEC 45
This is the star of my Vandalic series, a 100-Nummi silver coin of Gunthamundus. The 100-Nummi pieces are much much rarer than the 50-Nummi coins. The large flan allowed the engraver to reproduce almost the full name of the king: DN REX GVN-THAMVNDV
I think the 100-Nummi denomination is really interesting. It was apparently not a successful denomiation. It was only issued by Gunthamund and apparently only in relatively small quantities. Interestingly, there is evidence that the Goths in Italy also experimented with larger silver denominations around that time. These (Siliqua, Miliarense) are exceedingly rare, i.e. only known from individual pieces and unavailable to collectors. However, there was apparently no use for larger silver denominations around AD 500.
