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Message:: [QUOTE="Cucumbor, post: 3205016, member: 4298"]You know you should buy the coin when... ... ten or twenty years later you still look at it so tenderly that you would buy it again. Apart from themed collections leading to search for specific coins, as a generalist I tend to buy only coins that speak to me, hence I would be hard pressed finding just one. Anyway [USER=56859]@TIF[/USER], I had a second chance on one of the coins you like the most in my collection : the Domitius Domitianus octadrachm ! I hesitated bidding on it when it came up at auction because of a starting price I wasn't comfortable with, and it apparently remained unsold. One year later or so, it came up again at the same auction house and I was still hesitating but timidly bid 1 franc over starting price (1 franc was 15 cents back then). It must have been my lucky day as I got it at my bid, meaning there was another bidder at the starting price !!! <img src="http://www.forumancientcoins.com/gallery/albums/userpics/11724/0561-410np_noir.jpg" class="bbCodeImage wysiwygImage" alt="" unselectable="on" /> Domitius Domitianus, Octadrachm, Emmet plate coin - Alexandria mint, AD 296-297 ΔOMITI-ANOC CEB, Radiate bust of Domitius rightNo legend, Serapis going right, LB in field (regnal year 2)12.79 grRef : Emmett, Alexandrian coins #4241/2, this example illustrated, Dattari # 10830, RCV # 12982 (2000), Sear # 4801 var (It's actually an hexadrachm in Sear)Domitius Domitianus, stationed in Egypt, rebelled against Diocletianus in july 296 AD and was proclaimed emperor. He was defeated during spring 297 AD. Diocletian decided to close the alexandrian mint, so the coins of Domitianus are the last provincial coins from Alexandria. Also, Domitianus was the only ruler to strike octadrachms (in parallel with didrachms, tetradrachms and hexadrachms) Also, the following comment, about another specimen sold at CNG (Triton XI, Lot # 539) "For the most part, scholars agree that the larger coins featuring the radiate bust must be a double, and thereby call it an octodrachm. At half the weight, then, the smallest coins with the Nike on the reverse must be tetradrachms, though these coins have erroneously been called heretofore didrachms. The weights of these tetradrachms appear consistent with the final issues of pre-reform tetradrachms of the Tetrarchs. The middle denomination poses the largest challenge to this arrangement. By weight, it should be a hexadrachm. However, no such denomination was known to have been struck in Egypt, though tetradrachms earlier in the third century achieved this weight. The obvious problem here would be the confusion caused in circulating the same denomination in two different weights. As this type is the rarest of the group, it is possible that it was meant for a special occasion, or more remotely, a stalled attempt to reinstitute the pre-reform coinage on an earlier weight standard. Further investigation may shed more light on this subject. Q [/QUOTE]

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