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<p>[QUOTE=&quot;TIF, post: 2564354, member: 56859&quot;]Recently there was an auction with many coins from the Dattari collection.&nbsp; Being a collector of Roman Egyptian coins, I was thrilled.&nbsp; All were plate coins and many or most were rarities, although not in particularly stellar condition.&nbsp; The condition wasn&#039;t terribly important to me-- I&#039;ve certainly happily bought many Roman Egyptian coins in much worse condition <img src="styles/default/xenforo/clear.png" class="mceSmilieSprite mceSmilie8" alt=":D" unselectable="on" unselectable="on" />.</p><p><br /></p><p>I wanted all of them but obviously that wasn&#039;t possible.&nbsp; After making a spreadsheet and keeping track of prebidding every few days, I narrowed the list.&nbsp; The auction was brutal.&nbsp; Perhaps I should have bid higher on some of the earlier coins of high interest but it was difficult when there were later coins of even higher interest.&nbsp; In the end I had bid on seventeen coins and won only three, none of which were from my top tier of choices.&nbsp; I had intended to bid on only 3-5, depending on the hammers, but kept adding more and more lower tier coins as bid after bid failed.</p><p><br /></p><p>The coin shown below wasn&#039;t even on my whittled bid list.&nbsp; It was the first Dattari lot of the sale and there was only one bid.&nbsp; At the last second I decided to toss in a bid.&nbsp; Later I was glad I did because for a while it looked like it might be my only win.&nbsp; The hippopotamus obol is the most common of Tiberius&#039;s obols.&nbsp; Numerous better examples exist but what can I say-- I&#039;m a sucker for the pedigree and I didn&#039;t have any Alexandrian coins of Tiberius <img src="styles/default/xenforo/clear.png" class="mceSmilieSprite mceSmilie1" alt=":)" unselectable="on" unselectable="on" /></p><p><br /></p><p>This coin was comparatively inexpensive, hammering just one increment above opening.&nbsp; Because of this I was very optimistic about winning many more.&nbsp; The action grew steadily after that and I was almost shut out.&nbsp; Maybe other bidders were a few lots late to the auction when the Dattari coins hit the block.</p><p><br /></p><p>As is often the case, the coin is better in hand than it was in the auction house images.&nbsp; The color is accurate.&nbsp; There are dark red concretions on the coin and the fields are dark brown.</p><p><br /></p><p>[ATTACH=full]553274[/ATTACH]</p><p><b>EGYPT, Alexandria.&nbsp; Tiberius</b></p><p>Year 5, CE 18/9</p><p>AE obol, 20 mm, 4.45 gm</p><p>Obv:&nbsp; bare head right</p><p>Rev:&nbsp;&nbsp; hippopotamus right; TIBEPIoY above; [L] E in exergue</p><p>Ref:&nbsp;&nbsp; Emmett 62.5, R1; Geissen 47; Dattari-Savio 102 (this coin); RPC 5082</p><p><i>ex Dattari collection (Giovanni Dattari, 1858-1923)</i></p><p><br /></p><p>Giovanni Dattari&#039;s personal history is surprisingly scanty. Born in Livorno, Italy (1858), at some point his family moved to Egypt where he became enamored of Egyptian antiquities and ancient numismatics.&nbsp; He began collecting coins in 1891.&nbsp; By 1894 he had 2,602 coins, growing to 6,835 Alexandrians, 91 archaic Greek, 230 Alexander the Great, 910 Ptolemaic, 19,320 Roman coins, and 630 lead and silver coins by 1903.&nbsp; By 1913 those numbers more than doubled.&nbsp; ([USER=76194]@Sallent[/USER] and others-- next time your spouses raise an eyebrow at your rate of acquisition, show them how frugal you are compared to Dattari <img src="styles/default/xenforo/clear.png" class="mceSmilieSprite mceSmilie8" alt=":D" unselectable="on" unselectable="on" />)</p><p><br /></p><p>Part of Dattari&#039;s collection may have been sold or donated while he was alive but in July 1951 his daughter offered donation of the remaining collection to the Italian state.&nbsp; The Italians procrastinated in completing the paperwork and the offer was withdrawn after the Egyptian army seized power and forced King Farouk into exile in July 1952.&nbsp; The chance to keep this astounding collection together in one place was thereby lost, and the collection was dispersed on the European market around 1970.</p><p><br /></p><p>In 1901 his collection was published and although it was not a sophisticated book, it because a standard reference for Roman Egyptian numismatics, containing 6,580 coins. In 1999 Adriano Savio compiled a markedly expanded catalog of Dattari coins.&nbsp; The second edition of this book (2007) contains yet more &quot;new&quot; coins:&nbsp; 31 additional plates showing 701 Alexandrian coins that Dattari evidently acquired after making the rubbings of his coins that are published in the first edition.&nbsp; The 2007 book shows more than 13,000 coins!</p><p><br /></p><p>The quality of the images is poor.&nbsp; The photographs are mostly of rubbings, which is how Dattari visually recorded the collection.&nbsp; Correlating a modern image with a Dattari plate coin can be challenging because many of the usual diagnostic features may not be visible in the rubbings (flan cracks, for example).&nbsp; The assembled plates have numbers and various notes, such as checkmarks as seen below.</p><p><br /></p><p style="text-align: center">[ATTACH=full]553303[/ATTACH]</p><p><br /></p><p>Savio, Adriano. <b>Numi Augg. Alexandrini: Catalogo della Collezione Dattari.</b></p><p>Published by Bernardi, Trieste, 2007.&nbsp; Limited edition of 250.</p><p>[ATTACH=full]553322[/ATTACH]</p><p><br /></p><p>Example of the original plates:</p><p>[ATTACH=full]553323[/ATTACH]</p><p><br /></p><p>Example of the plates added in the 2007 edition:</p><p>[ATTACH=full]553324[/ATTACH]</p><p><br /></p><p>...</p><p><br /></p><p>Please feel free to post any Roman Egyptian coins you wish to show or plate coins of any types (preferably with a picture of the book plate <img src="styles/default/xenforo/clear.png" class="mceSmilieSprite mceSmilie1" alt=":)" unselectable="on" unselectable="on" />).[/QUOTE]</p><p><br /></p>

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