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<p>[QUOTE=&quot;zumbly, post: 8129387, member: 57495&quot;]<b>10. PHYRGIA, Laodicea ad Lycum. AE15. </b></p><p>Infant Deity Ploutus.</p><p>[ATTACH=full]1416020[/ATTACH]</p><p>I have a small sub-collection of coins depicting gods as infants (which [USER=56859]@TIF[/USER] has dubbed my &quot;Deities in Diapers&quot; set) that I add to whenever the opportunity arises.&nbsp; The reverse of this one features baby Ploutos, the Greek god of wealth and abundance, who was sometimes conflated with the Roman god Pluto.&nbsp; Now, thanks to this coin, whenever I think of that dour and dreaded Lord of the Underworld, all I can see is a cute little tyke whooshing down a cornucopiae like it&#039;s a playground slide. </p><p><br /></p><p><br /></p><p><b>9. DOMITIAN. Rome mint. AE As.&nbsp; </b></p><p>Ludi Saeculares scene. Ex P.A. Zanchi (&quot;White Mountain&quot;) Collection.</p><p>[ATTACH=full]1416019[/ATTACH]</p><p>I&#039;ve always found this reverse type remarkable for its detailed depiction of a religious scene from Domitian&#039;s Secular Games of AD 93, showing the emperor sacrificing at an altar accompanied by two musicians, with a temple serving as a backdrop. Obviously, a lot of thought and care was put into its design, and it&#039;s a great example of what Rome&#039;s die engravers could achieve on the canvas of its larger bronze coins.&nbsp; I was surprised and really quite pleased when I managed to affordably snag this piece with its exceptionally well preserved reverse.</p><p><br /></p><p><br /></p><p><b>8. CLAUDIUS. EGYPT, Alexandria. AE Dichalkon. </b></p><p>Addition to the Zoo: Frog.</p><p>[ATTACH=full]1416018[/ATTACH]</p><p>While not looking that bad for Alexandrian, it&#039;s not great either.&nbsp; However, as frogs just don&#039;t pop up on ancient coins all that often, I would have bid on this one even if it had been in worse condition (I do it so you don&#039;t have to).&nbsp; It&#039;s also possible that the frog depicted on this dichalkon is not just any old frog, but the Egyptian frog deity Heqet, goddess of fertility, rebirth and abundance.&nbsp; And on account of that, I will almost certainly be flexing my possibly divine frog whenever the topic of animals on coins comes up.&nbsp;&nbsp; </p><p><br /></p><p><br /></p><p><b>7. MESOPOTAMIA, Adiabene. Natounia. AE22.</b></p><p>Addition to the Zoo: Camel with bonus rider.</p><p>[ATTACH=full]1416017[/ATTACH]</p><p>A purchase from December 2020, but as it only arrived in January, I had it as a candidate for my 2021 list.&nbsp; In my book, a coin with a camel on it is one that any lover of animal coins ought to have, but this type stands out even more for the camel having a rider on it!&nbsp; As I&#039;d never seen anything like it before, it went straight to the top of my want list, and I count myself lucky that not more bidders thought it was as cool as I obviously did.&nbsp; Oliver Hoover suggests that the rider is Arsu, the Arab god of the evening star, protector of travelers and caravan traders, which just makes it, as a side note in my aforementioned book, an even cooler coin. </p><p><br /></p><p><br /></p><p><b>6. ANTONINUS PIUS. EGYPT, Alexandria. AE Drachm.</b></p><p>Zodiac Series: Mars in Aries.</p><p>[ATTACH=full]1416016[/ATTACH]</p><p>Being your typical rational-minded Virgo, I&#039;ve never bought into the whole astrology thing.&nbsp; That hasn&#039;t, however, stopped me from wanting to collect the Zodiac series of coins struck at Alexandria during the reign of Antoninus Pius.&nbsp; Thought to have been issued to celebrate the renewal of the 1460 year Sothic Cycle, they feature wonderfully unique reverses representing various constellations and the corresponding heavenly bodies that they were in conjunction with at the dawn of the great new age.&nbsp; Drachms from this series are always popular, often rare, typically in poor condition, and as a result of all those factors, horribly expensive in higher grades.&nbsp; Just two months prior to this auction, <a href="https://www.acsearch.info/search.html?id=7921782" target="_blank" class="externalLink ProxyLink" data-proxy-href="https://www.acsearch.info/search.html?id=7921782" rel="nofollow">the Dattari example</a> of this Mars in Aries variety sold for EUR 14,000 before fees!&nbsp; I ended up paying less a tenth of that for mine, which is still pretty horrible, but I guess not so bad when one thinks about the expense in terms of a 1460 year-long cosmological cycle.&nbsp; Also, I take some satisfaction in noting that the reverse of mine has almost as much detail as that far pricier Dattari piece (apologies for bragging, but I couldn&#039;t help it - Moon in Leo here. <img src="styles/default/xenforo/clear.png" class="mceSmilieSprite mceSmilie80" alt=":shame:" unselectable="on" unselectable="on" />)</p><p><br /></p><p><br /></p><p><b>5. PICENUM, Hatria. Circa 275-225 BC. AE Teruncius. </b></p><p>Addition to the Zoo: Stingray.</p><p>[ATTACH=full]1416015[/ATTACH]</p><p>While I find the obverse of this massive 114 gram cast bronze interesting for its crude, dumpy-looking dolphin, it was the beast on the reverse, referred to in most catalogs as a stingray or skate, that made it a target for me.&nbsp; I especially like that the unusual top view depiction makes it seem like you&#039;re looking down at it as it swims through the water, the curl of its tail adding to the illusion of motion.&nbsp; Of course, its measurements - size and weight similar to that of a Ptolemaic oktobol - are also impressive.&nbsp; The three pellet mark of value below the stingray indicates that it is a teruncius (worth three unciae), issued at the city of Hatria at around the same time aes grave on the Libral standard were produced at Rome.&nbsp; It&#039;s the first of these massive cast Italian bronzes in my collection, and hopefully, it won&#039;t be the last.&nbsp;&nbsp; </p><p><br /></p><p><br /></p><p><b>4. CIVIL WAR. Forces of Galba in Spain. AR Denarius.</b></p><p>Augustan Sidus Iulium type. Ex Gollnow Collection.</p><p>[ATTACH=full]1416014[/ATTACH]</p><p>The catalog for Leu&#039;s October sale, which included as a separate book Christian Gollnow&#039;s amazingly comprehensive collection of Civil War denarii, was the one that got me excited about the prospects of participating in an auction again after the long, frustrating hiatus that had been ongoing for me since April.&nbsp; A Civil War denarius had been on my want list for the longest time, and I was determined to break my dry spell with one of these.&nbsp; The two I ended up with weren&#039;t my top choices, but I don&#039;t think I was ever blinkered enough to think my chances of winning my actual favorites were any better than Nero&#039;s chances of winning his 10-horse chariot race at the &#039;67 Olympics without cheating (basically, zero).&nbsp; I do really love this one, though.&nbsp; It was minted by Galba in the early days of the revolt against Nero, when he didn&#039;t dare yet call himself emperor and before he struck coins in his own name, choosing in this instance to instead copy an issue of Augustus.&nbsp; The original &#039;Comet of Caesar&#039; type is also on my want list, and with any luck, I&#039;ll be able to acquire an example in 2022 to complement this one. </p><p><br /></p><p><br /></p><p><b>3. ROME, 4th century AD. AE Contorniate. </b></p><p>Nero &amp; Olympias.</p><p>[ATTACH=full]1416013[/ATTACH]</p><p>I&#039;d always been fascinated by the highly unusual contorniates that were made in Rome in the 4th century, and being able to own one of them was a big box to check for me.&nbsp; I was therefore a little dismayed when I read in one of his pre-auction missives the esteemed Dr Alan Walker of Nomos opine that he could never figure out why people were interested in them.&nbsp; And while I&#039;d long admired Dr Walker, all I could think was, &quot;Hmmmph, I guess there&#039;s no accounting for taste!&quot;&nbsp; Of course, I was referring to my own taste, and that I will adamantly refuse to account for how questionable it can get.&nbsp; If anything, it made me feel a sense of solidarity with the 4th century citizen of Rome who gave this contorniate as a New Year&#039;s gift to a friend or family member, and who was perhaps met with a raised eyebrow about having chosen one with this match-made-in-hell pairing of the infamous Nero (bad husband, awful son, terrible emperor, universally reviled actor and poet) on one side and the notorious Olympias (Alexander the Great called her mother, [USER=51347]@Alegandron[/USER] just calls her &quot;ding-bat&quot;) on the other.&nbsp; Beyond the fact that I couldn&#039;t have helped but love something as visually and historically wacky anyway, I&#039;ve now developed a connection with this contorniate that money can&#039;t buy.&nbsp; So thanks for that, Dr Walker! <img src="styles/default/xenforo/clear.png" class="mceSmilieSprite mceSmilie1" alt=":)" unselectable="on" unselectable="on" /></p><p><br /></p><p><br /></p><p><b>2. PROBUS. AV Aureus. Probus and Sol. </b></p><p>Ex Leo Biaggi de Blasys Collection. Calico Plate coin.</p><p>[ATTACH=full]1416012[/ATTACH]</p><p>With the numerous silver and bronze types perpetually crowding my want list, my coin budget almost never allows for shiny, gold targets.&nbsp; But this was a weird year, and getting often shut out of the competition in my usual areas of interest, I took an impulse stab at this Probus I chanced upon and somehow ended up landing myself my first ever Imperial gold coin.&nbsp; It has plenty of flaws - considerable wear, various dings, digs and scratches, a repaired hole, edge damage from having been mounted - but none important enough to keep me from seeing it as a beautiful and interesting coin.&nbsp; I&#039;d like to think that Mr Biaggi, who some decades ago had added this very coin to his splendiferous collection of Roman gold, would agree.</p><p><br /></p><p><br /></p><p><b>1. LUCIUS VERUS. EGYPT, Alexandria. AE Diobol. </b></p><p>Snake Cowboy!</p><p>[ATTACH=full]1416011[/ATTACH]</p><p>The Provincial coins of Roman Egypt have always been a candy store of weird and wonderful reverse types for me.&nbsp; This one ranks right up there with the best of them with its depiction of a coiled Agathodaemon serpent riding horseback.&nbsp; [USER=84744]@Severus Alexander[/USER] was the one who first coined the term Snake Cowboy for the type, but [USER=56859]@TIF[/USER] is the acknowledged CT doyen of them, and having received her blessing to go after this example, I finally got to cross a big one off my want list.&nbsp; According to Emmett, the iconography of the type represents the seasonal cycle of crop growth and harvesting, and I can easily imagine my holed example being used to adorn the office of a grain trader, or the home of a wealthy landowner.&nbsp; It may also have been used as a religious decoration at a shrine or other place of worship.&nbsp; With the Antonine Plague starting to ravage the Empire in the mid 160s, the divine influence of Agathodaemon, the good spirit of protection and agricultural abundance, would have been particularly apt.&nbsp; I had a feeling when I won this coin that it wouldn&#039;t just be the crowning glory of my holed coin collection but also possibly top my list of acquisitions for the whole year as well.&nbsp; Lo and behold, here it is!</p><p><br /></p><p><br /></p><p>If you&#039;ve made it this far, thanks for reading.&nbsp; I&#039;d love to hear which coins on my list are your favorites, and please feel free to share anything related.</p><p><br /></p><p>Here&#039;s wishing everyone a better year ahead in and out of Coinland![/QUOTE]</p><p><br /></p>

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