Like every December, I am following the compass of CoinTalk to evaluate my coin collecting year (with growing excitement, watching you all with your top-tens! Thanks Very Much!). This always consumes a lot of time, but I’m arriving at the same conclusion as ever: > my interest and my wallet is frittered away into buying too many coins that are nice enough (or less so), and too few coins that make it to the top 10, or top 50 even. 2020 was a year of ups and downs, some months I bought almost nothing (because of the uncertainty of the times), or I just didn’t have time to spare – that’s why you occasionally don’t see me on CoinTalk for weeks - and then again I was taken along by a nice auction. A few times I decided to buy One Special Coin, and all these made it to the top. I’ll show them soon. But I also bought some Beasts, coins that are not beautiful but interesting, like fractional sigloi (Iran. Achaemenid Empire. AR 1/8 siglos. Sardeis. Carradice IV middle (4th century BC). A worn penny of the Ottonian dynasty, a coin with sinking Titanic of the Republic of Liberia. I bought a very ugly Roman barbarous imitation, but a gold fourrée, the first ‘gold’ barb. (Pseudo-Imperial coinage. Mid 3rd-early 4th centuries. 'Aureus' (fourrée (subaerate), 18 mm, 2.65 g, 12 h), imitating Marcus Aurelius (?). Obv. ∾CIΠ∾ •/∾C•ΛI∾ON Laureate head to right. Rev. XCIIXCIXPX XCXIXICXICX Uncertain figure standing right, left arm outstretched. AB 54, 56, 198. Holed and with some breaks in the plating.) Some fifty different Qarakhanid coppers, because they are fitting well next to the other 250 pieces I already had of this fascinating dynasty. (AE fals Qarakhanids. Bakr b. al-Hasan, 1004-1009. Ilaq (now in Uzbekistan), 393 AH = 1003 AD. Obv. 6-pointed star. Bakr cited within hexagram on obverse, his overlord Qutb al-Dawla Ahmad b. 'Ali on reverse. 28 mm, 2.83 gr.) Yes, I was going after the year 1 000 A.D. as much as I was going after the year 0, Zero A.D.! Some rare islamic dynasties (Kakwayhids, Habbarids, Muttids, Mamunids, Amirs of Bust). Some Sasanian kings that filled up holes (Varhran I, Yazdgard II, Valkash). Parthian coppers, elusive oriental coins, fifteen Abbasid coppers, a superior set of Persis silvers, and I was enthralled by all those (very cheap) Indonesian Sultanate coins, and some of the magnificent large ‘Broad AE dirhams’ of 1100-1300 AD. This is a Mongolian coin, its value was a silver dirham, but intrinsically it's only cheap copper with a silvery layer. In fact, it is comparable with a fiduciary banknote, like the Chinese ones of the 14th century. It carries a threatening message: "In Samarqand, as inside, so outside, the one who not takes it will be found guilty". (AE Chagatayid dirham, Samarkand, AH 663 (=1265 AD). Temp. Alughu (659-664/ 1261-1266 AD). 38 mm, 7.11 gr. Davidovich type 10. Zeno 40355. Album collected issues B1979.) But: 38 mm! A real broad dirham. And that’s not all by a long stretch. But I finally made my choices and you will see my top-25 soon.
A slightly less graphic translation would be, "This note is legal tender for all debts public and private." This appears on US paper money today.
I worry about this too. But when I consider each coin I bought, I can't imagine giving it up. Like my own example of a fractional siglos (1/12): I like your eclectic taste and look forward to your list of winners!
As for the fractional sigloi, there is this thread. In the meantime, here is another that I bought in May. It's a third siglos of (I believe) Carradice IV A: kneel-running king with a dagger, and cartoonlike. Iran. Achaemenid Empire. AR 1/3 siglos. Sardeis. Carradice Type IV, Group A. About 450-420 BC. 1/3 Siglos AR 10mm., 1.75g. banker's mark on obverse (Nr. 200?).
Pellinore, I'm a big fan of Barbarian coinage, so I think your barbarous fourree aureus is a great score !
