What's your (realistic) ancient collecting holy grails?

Bertolami - lot #313 - it went for $3500 euros. It's on Numisbids - it would not be up on acsearch yet. The sestertii in the sale are among the finest I have seen in years. The auction house for some reason seems to handle some very nice sestertii. But, whenever you have a sale like this there are always bargains - but it means spending alot of time hanging in there and going to many of these. No way can I do it now.

 

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In my wish list,

 

P.S. Naturally, it went for -with buyers fee - over $4200 - it has one of the most beautiful portraits of Septimius Severus. Oddly enough, there is a provincial city that struck amazingly beautiful portraits of Septimius. It is in or around the Balkans I think. I had received some of these from my supplier back when I had a supplier and the coins were wonderful. How I wish I had kept them! As for sestertii from the 199 to 209 period I intend to keep looking - I pin my hopes on events like the Geta as Caesar sestertius with a reverse consisting of priestly objects that was sold about 20 or so years ago to a lucky buyer for under $300, or the Geta as Caesar sestertius that appeared out of nowhere on ebay which I found early in the morning and immediately purchased for an affordable price - my one and only sestertius of Geta as caesar, and the only one I have ever seen offered on ebay other than the tooled horror. Nice to have a goal I guess, but only about 12 examples sold anywhere in all these years - but I will keep looking.

Since purchasing three coins in 20 years would be a ridiculous way to collect, my interest now is rare and interesting sestertii, the whole field - I just purchased an affordable sestertius of Postumus, with Jupiter on the reverse looking backward - apparently one of only a handful known, although for some reason it is only listed as "scarce" in RIC. This interest was inspired by a comment from Curtis Clay about interesting sestertii, and I have given it a lot of thought. Today a common coin in high grade generates much more interest than an extremely rare coin in poor grade - although one could argue that high grade coins are always extremely rare too. The first catalogs I ever looked at were CNG's from the early 2000's where you could find extremely rare coins in wonderful condition - still can I am sure but I no longer get the catalogs.

In any event, I also managed to find a semi-affordable sestertius of the wife of Didius Julianus in so so condition - rare but not excessively so - 132 or thereabouts sold since 1999 on acsearch.info. Yes I know it is rude not to post photographs, which I will do. Also isn't it amazing that a coin that has appeared only 132 times or so in major auctions since 1999 would be considered as "not excessively rare." ok enough of these mutterings. I really love this hobby!