World Coins: Your Newest Acquisition!

$8 in OGP of the Royal Australian Mint. I can't find a flaw. I thought it was a reverse proof but it's weight indicates and packaging says "frosted uncirculated coin"...

 

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Love the frosted appearance of this coin. Was is OGP?

 

Original Government Packaging

 

Picked up this Ptolemy II Octodrachm recently.

Ptolemaic Egypt was the only Greek-ruled kingdom to strike large quantities of enormous gold coins weighing nearly an ounce. This denomination, today usually called an octodrachm, was worth 100 silver drachms, or one mina, a small fortune in ancient times. The Greco-Egyptians called the 100-mina piece a mnaieion (min-EYE-on). The first mnaieions carried four royal portraits -- Ptolemy II and his sister-wife on the obverse with the epithet adelphon ("sibling lovers"), backed with the portraits of his parents, Ptolemy I Soter and Berenice I, now identified as theon ("gods").
I like the coin because it has 4 royal portraits


This particular one is an AU* 5/5 AND 5/5 and possibly my last big ticket (at least for my budget) ancient for the year

 

VERY cool. How many grams?

 

27.67 grams

 

The eyeballs alone must weigh 3 grams... Remarkable that many centuries later the Spanish Empire decided an 8 Escudos would weigh almost exactly the same.

 

Tiny silver

 

Recent local show buys. I'm enjoying world coinage more and more and...uh-oh...my first Thaler...this may be the beginning of...something.

 

Be careful, it's a slippery slope. You can't have just one Taler. They prefer company.

 

Welcome aboard the dark and slippery slope...I fell down it long ago

 

Yep. I see this as a certainty in my near future. The dealer I bought the 1753 from also had a 1612 Lubeck Thaler in nice circulated condition for a reasonable price.

This may compete heavily with nice Standing Liberty quarters for my limited collection funds.

 

Just remember, its only money..........555!
(That is Thai lingo, pronounced Ha! Ha! Ha!)

 

If it makes a difference (and it always has to me), the Lubek Taler is likely as scarce as a 1918/17-S Standing Liberty Quarter but without the high price tag. That 1908 Austrian 5 Corona on the other hand is abundantly available up through AU, the real challenge is finding one in nice MS condition. I like it more than the Taler denomination because it is bigger and has more silver in it, a silver crown by anyone's definition which isn't always the case with Talers.

 

I fully understand the comparative scarcity/rarity of USA coins versus non-USA coins. The Lubeck was priced at $275, which I feel is a good price for a 407 year old large silver coin.

I bought the 5 Corona because it's a crown sized coin type I didn't have yet and it was a good deal.

I paid $60 total for the Bavaria Thaler and the 5 Corona, so that's not bad.

 

Had this one a couple years, paid about $275 or what you would expect to pay for a similar graded 1878-8TF Morgan. I've got most of the set, including the 10, 20 and 100 Corona struck for the 60th anniversary of reign. There's also KM-2808, a real common 1 Corona available (even in high grade) for only a few dollars, - I'm missing the easy one! For whatever reason, they didn't strike a 2 Corona for the anniversary which I have never understood.

 

Simple, the 2 corona denomination did not exist yet in 1908.

After the 1908 Austrian corona type, even the 1 corona/korona denomination was not struck again until 1912 in the empire, where it was then struck alongside the new 2 corona/korona denomination during 1912 and 1913. Only Hungarian mints also struck a 2 korona in 1914, but it had a very low mintage.

 

Canadian bank token.

 

My latest addition to my ICCS graded Canada Silver Dollar set.

 

Got this a few weeks back. Hoping the low mintage will increase the value some day.