Very worn sestertii

They are not much to look at but I really like these 2 both are heavey and very smooth. Commodus, and Faustina jr.
So I was wondering what are some of your Favorate worn coins.

 

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Heres one more I really like, an As of Vespasian. Not sure if it was smoothed, or maybe a pocket piece.

 

Maybe a pocket piece

One can wonder whose pocket?

 

I think this is my favorite worn sestertius. It started as a Claudius sestertius but was revalued by the countermark to dupondius partly due to wear and partly from being a lightweight barbarous copy to start with.

 

That ones really cool, almost like having 3 coins in 1. Too nice for this thread! lol

 

I do have a very worn Hadrian sestertius, but quite a rare one, that I like (not often I like worn coins as you know :whistle


Hadrian, Sestertius
HADRIANVS AVG COS III P P , laureate and draped bust right
RESTITVTORI HISPANIAE, Hadrian raising kneeling figure of Hipania
24.3 gr
RCV # 3633, scarce

Q

 

C'mon, we know you have a secret junk box collection:yes:

These are neat ones, I have a similar one of i think RESTITVTORI ACHAIAE

edit: heres a photo

 

Worn Sestertius

Cool stuff Randy, I especially like the one of Vespasian.

That is a very nice example Doug, I much like it.
Cucumbor, very cool Hadrian Sestertius, I like these series.
Randy, that last photo you posted looks like a pretty nice coin underneath the encrustation, somewhat rare type too.

I think my favorite worn coin in my collection is this Sestertius of Julia Mamaea, it's a nice heavy thick one too:
-------
Julia Mamaea AE Sestertius. 228-9 AD. 24.9 grams.

obv: JULIA MAMAEA AUGUSTA - Diademed and draped bust right, seen from the front.
rev: VENVS VICTRIX SC - Venus standing left holding helmet & scepter, shield at feet.
--------
There is a hair on the coin in a couple of the photos that looks a bit like a scratch on her neck, but it isn't. The last photo shows the edge in comparison with another Julia Mamaea Sestertius that weighs 19.6 grams, this one weighs 24.9 grams.

 

This thread has gone way past 'worn' into 'middle grade'. These last are way too nice. Many Roman sestertii were struck a bit weakly and on the day they were made would not grade over Fine using strict standards. Another issue is that most Roman coins had a lot more wearable relief on the obverse than on the reverse so many lower grade (from wear) coins still look VG when the reverse is nearly gone. I'll offer here an as (sorry it is not a sestertius) of Claudius which I saved due to the patina (but still never could bring myself to assign an accession number). If you are good, you can still identify the reverse so it must be AG (poor is reserved for sides of coins identifiable only using evidence from the other side???). Here is a coin with nearly the whole obverse legend remaining and nothing on the reverse.

 

Yeah those are too nice The last one of Hadrian I posted doesnt have any encrustation, its just heavily pitted metal with around half the patina still intact. It came in a junk lot. If the patina had remained it would be an awsome coin, and probably not in my collection XD.

I have several Ases with almost no rev. I've seen some listed as "possible gaming pieces" but it seems the wear is most likely from circulation.

Heres a couple more junker sestertii :hail: Though its mostly corosion on the one of Vespasian (as well as the one of hadrain) rather than wear.

Nero Claudius Drusus AE Sestertius. NERO CLAVDIVS DRVSVS GERMANICVS IMP, bare head left / TI CLAVDIVS CAESAR AVG P M TR P IMP, Claudius, togate, seated left on curule chair, holding branch; arms lying around; SC in ex.



Vespasian, first issue of 71
IMP CAESAR VESPASIANVS AVG P M T P P P COS III, bust laureate r. resting on globe and with aegis on shoulder / FIDES EXERCITVVM, S C in ex. , clasped hands before legionary eagle on prow.

"The obverse die is A23 in Colin Kraay's unpublished Oxford dissertation, the rev. die P75. Kraay didn't know this die combination, but it is recorded by RIC 70 from a single specimen in the Termopolio Hoard from Pompeii, published in 1997.

These are rare types: only one other obv. die of the issue shows this combination of aegis and globe for the bust, and this is the only rev. die of the FIDES EXERCITVVM type used in the issue, though a second such die was used later in the year with Vespasian's name abbreviated VESPASIAN (no -VS).

To see what your dies looked like before the corrosion, see RIC pl. 18, 117 and pl. 16, 71 for the obv. and rev. respectively! There are the same two dies on well preserved specimens in other die combinations."

 

Doug is right... my Julia Mamaea 'VENVS VICTRIX' Sestertius is just the most worn Roman I have in my collection I think.... either that one, or the Severus Alexander with Providentia on the reverse that I am adding to this post, then again I do not have too many Roman Bronzes... it was quite hard to capture the dark green patina on this one with my camera.... again, it is more low/middle grade than heavily worn. I have seen quite a few like the one doug posted though, with the reverse worn so heavily that it is nearly gone.
Randy: I see what you mean now about the Hadrian when I look closer. That Vespasian one sure would be cool if it were in better condition, I quite fancy that reverse, I remember seeing it in your FORVM album a while back and thinking how nice it must have looked when first struck.

this is the info I got from the seller when I purchased this one, at a very good price I might add
----
Severvs Alexander : C orichalcum Sestertius - Providentia / RARE
OBV.: IMP CAES M AUR SEV ALEXANDER AUG - Laureate and draped bust right. Seen from behind.
REV.: PONTIF MAX TRP II COS PP, S C - Providentia standing left, legs crossed,
leaning on column, holding wand over globe & cornucopiae.
19.88grams
---

 

This sestertius came cheap but provided me with hours of fun trying to identify it,
as it was not listed in RIC or Cohen.


Obverse: Laureate head right, ANTONINVS AVG PIUS
Reverse: Dacia standing, D in lower left, S C in field
Diameter: 31mm
Weight: 23.58gm

Identification:

http://www.cointalk.com/t145822

 

I still havent seen one of Vespasian like mine, Curtisclay identified it for me on forvm.

That can make it quite difficult lol

and thanks all for sharing (keep em coming)

 

Also lets remember that there is a difference between worn coins and ones that have suffered damage since they stopped circulating as money and became items buried in the ground to be eaten by chemicals in the soil or those used bycoin cleaners. We have our personal preferences. I do not mind coins with 'honest wear' gained through years of circulation but I am rarely attracted to corroded, pitted, scrubbed and otherwise damaged coins.I'll add an image showing a coin with a lot of wear. Surely I'd rather have one with more details but the smooth surfaces allowed this a place in my collection.

Have you noticed that some coins are more often sen in badly worn condition than others? Alexandria bronze drachms like this Hadrian (year 2 with elephants) circulated for a long time and are often found even more slick than this one. On the other hand, the later period tetradrachms of Alexandria issued by Diocletian, for example, circulated for only a short while before the system of branch mints striking regular Roman coins made the provincials obsolete. We see low grade coins of the later types but usually their problems are not 'honest' wear. Certainly there are exceptions but coins at the start of a period stayed in circulation while the last issues before a coinage reform are harder to find worn slick. The easiest coin to find worn out are denarii of the Mark Antony legionary type. The silver in them was debased so much that it took two centuries before they were worth saving for their bullion content. As a result, they were spent over and over again and got worn badly. Perhaps half the ones you see are worn so badly that they have lost their legion numbers.

 

Worn coins seem to have alot extra history attached. I'm sure collecting trends were not that different that ours and that popularity as well as purity of certain coins effected the amount of circulation they recieved.

My as of Augustus (below) reminds me of a worry stone the rev is almost completely smooth (minus the coin warts) and the coin is curved slightly,

 

Nice ones randy, maybe someone did use it as a worry stone heh. I always wanted a mark antony denarius, hope to find a decent one eventually, lower down on my list of wanted coins though.... I dont so much mind wear on the galley side, its the standards and eagle I like the most, even if the legion were not visible, not that I wouldnt prefer one with everything visible

Doug, I really like that Hadrian of Alexandria, very cool. Even with all the smoothness, the reverse is nice, and date well visible. I know bronze Drachmai of that period can be rare.

 

If you want to see some rare ones, look up a copy of the Classical Numismatic Group auctions 12 and 13 (especially 13) when they sold the Kerry K. Wetterstrom Collection. He had some you won't see just everywhere. I really regret my retirement caused my activity in the hobby to drop to the point that fancy dealers stopped sending me their catalogs (and I am too cheap to pay the subscribe price). I still get a lot of information from old catalogs (CNG, NFA and several European houses) and wish all of them were online and searchable.

 

Alot of the catalogs I used to get have also ceased, the only one I've gotten recently have alot of tooled coins in it. I'm still trying to get a feel for the rarity of ancient coins. Its about the equivliant of the ancients rating system of museum stock, but I search galleries, shops, and just a general google search for a certain coin to see how common it is.

edit: Hanniballianus is a good example of a coin that extremely/very rare, but just in a few mintues I found about 40 online. I have another coin of Constans that listed as scarce, only to find out I already had for a while, lol. ( I had been unable to i.d. it)

 

'Rare' is a relative thing. People have a list of emperors or significant Romans and some think they need a coin of each one. Hanniballianus in on that list and has higher demand than might be justified for his position in history. In general, rarity of types means little in pricing ancients but rare rulers fare better. The coin I showed in the thread on bronze disease is 1000 times rarer than Hanniballianus (possibly unique - twice as rare as Domitian II) but nobody cares and it is worth $10. Pay extra for interesting coins that exist in smaller numbers than there are people who want one. There are 80+ examples of the Brutus EID MAR denarius and at least 8000 people who would buy one if they were common. Don't pay extra for a coin because it has a high rarity code in RIC unless you are trying to complete the set and understand why that coin makes your life better. US collectors 'need' certain key coins to complete a set of coins all identical except for dates and mintmarks. Ancient collectors are freed from that since there is no such thing as a complete set of anything ancient. There are too many coins known only from one example for anyone to collect by filling spaces in Whitman blue folders.

 

It almost seems like there should also be a popularity scale.