Kohaku

Hunter's Gold,

That's a very cool tetra, I especially love Zeus' pose on the reverse.

And, indeed, it would be interesting if an ancient coin "could talk".  You might be interested to read my Owner's Comments for my Emperor Arcadius' siliqua, where I took that concept, and I presented that particular coin's history from its own perspective as if the coin told its own story!...

https://coins.www.collectors-society.com/wcm/coinview.aspx?sc=322609

No one should be without (at least one) snake coin!

Here is an example of one of mine, the famous Julius Caesar "elephant denarius" (which makes me think it should be called the "elephant and snake denarius"!

https://coins.www.collectors-society.com/wcm/coinview.aspx?sc=339962

RAM-VT - Another fascinating chapter in your story about your personal numismatic journey!  Your description about filling in those holes in those little blue Whitman booklets certainly brings back the memories for me as well.  And I also remember as a child going to the bank and trading in roll after roll of pennies (looking for old wheaties) and also half dollars (looking for those with some silver content).

I look forward to your next Journal Entry!

World Coin Nut - thanks!  I have been trying to acquire this coin for some time...and as soon as I did manage to acquire this coin it became one of my most favorite specimens!

Ram in VT

I am sorry to see your outstanding collection no longer listed here.  I wanted to communicate my thanks and appreciation for all the effort you have out into your ancient collections.

Your Custom NGC ancients collection was a great inspiration to start and grow my own.  Countless times I have perused your collection and read over your very astute comments.   I see you as a pioneer in this regard, so, I wanted to give you a personal thanks for sharing your set for the time that you did, and I wish you well in any future endeavors, including those other journal topics!

I love your last posted coin, and I am totally with you in that those provincial bronze in high condition are exceedingly rare.  While there is certainly the urge to focus collecting "higher grade" ancient, for example  AU or MS denarii, I am often actually much more satisfied in obtaining and seeing an ancient bronze achieve a "lower grade" like an XF.  Given the reactivity of copper alloy vs. silver or gold, the achievement is even more special oftentimes.

Cheers!

P.S.  I have to ask - since yous said you sold a portion, do you have any remaining ancients you might still be willing to sell?  I would be extremely interested, as I am sure other here would be as well!

Jack: A fascinating and well-written journal entry!  Thanks for sharing the pic of that beautiful silver 8 reales coin and the history behind its production (and I may have to get me one of those!).   I very much concur with the satisfaction provided by doing research on the history of the coin's in one's collection.  I look forward to Part II and beyond...

Six Mile Rick - Funny you should mention May as a good month...I haven't been procuring coins for my Roman Empire collection at a fast rate lately...however...I did manage to procure two specimens in May auctions, both representing historical figures on my wish list for quite some time.

I wont say more about them yet, until I confirm grading and can post at least some preliminary research!

I have to ask...is the coin still in that plastic stapled to that letter?!

Wow, that is really quite special - an amazing treasure indeed - and thanks for sharing!

That is an awesome story!  Since I am also of Italian decent, I appreciate your comment about tradition.

I totally understand if you don't wish to even submit them for grading, that is not for everyone, to be sure.  But I am very curious if you ever got those Roman coins identified/appraised/cataloged, etc?  If you have any images, it would be extremely interesting to share what treasures are in that bag!

Gary,

Your Seated Imagery set is indeed very fab - I have perused that set before, including that denarius.  For anyone else interested, I highly recommend it!

Although I don't specialize that type in my Roman Empire collection, I went through and counted how many different "seated deity" coins that I had, just to get an idea of how popular that seated deity motif was for ancient Roman coinage. I counted a total of 21 (almost 10% of my collection), representing 11 different gods: Allat, Athena,  Concordia, Cybele, Fides, Fortuna, Pudicitia, Roman, Salus, Venus, Zeus, with Roma the most popular.  No wonder this beautiful motif endured to modern times.

Your sets are great keep it up!

Gary,

That's a fabulous coin, with a very interesting story behind it, thanks for posting.  Of course, I was curious to check out your "Inspirational Ladies" set, so I did just that.  Wow! I wanted to say that your set is fantastic, with some very, very lovely specimens in there.  I really enjoyed the write ups, and I realize how much effect that can take!

Congrats on such a great addition to the collection!

Mk123,

Thanks again for your kind comments.  Seeing responses like yours reminds me that my effort isn't just for my own satisfaction. I am also pleased to comment that, with the completion of my writeup on the Caligula bronze, this "Page" of the Roman Empire is now completed!

Mk123 - Thank you for the comment and I appreciate the encouragement!

Abuelo,

Thanks for your comment on the Roman collection.  As for NGC's images, your point is well taken.  For me, I find it extremely difficult to image coins, especially ancients, and especially bronzes.I occasionally have tried NGC's photo service, but I don't particularly care for their background and am I  not convinced the extra cost is necessary.

Good luck!

Welsh Dragon,

Thank you for your kind comments.  Indeed, I have invested quite a lot of time in this set.  It has afforded my an enormous personal satisfaction, for the interesting things I have learned along the way.  

Having said that, any enjoyment that you or anyone else can gain out of perusing my collection, well, that is perhaps an even greater satisfaction to me!

I am still a bit behind in keeping up to date on the collection, I have about a dozen coins that are still pending my Owner's Comments.  This is taking me time since I am finding myself more and more strict about my research and generating an interesting essay on each coin, in particular to make sure I review a good sampling of the reasonable available sources.  I am currently working on my Caligula essay, and this particular one I have been working on and off for a really long time.

Also, I am currently awaiting my next set of grading to come back soon from NGC, another seven coins. When I get the results, I will post to this journal, and, when I finally finish the Owner's Comments for each one, I will post an update as I go along.

I am also considering what is my "end game" for this collection.  I am thinking about adding another 1 to 3 more "Pages".  I might add at least another page for the late Empire, and I am also thinking about adding a "denouement" type Page (I already am accumulating some coins for that, including Goths, Vandals, etc.), and I am also thinking about adding a Page showing examples of "modern" coins, say even dating to 20th century, that use imagery hailing back to ancient Rome. In any case, if/when I decide to expand this collection a bit, I will post my thoughts here in this journal for anyone interested.

Cheers,

Kohaku

Mike,

I am very sorry to read your post, and I am finding it difficult to put my thoughts to words (and, as you know, I can really say a lot when I put my mind to it).

I have barely come to know you - of course - since I am a relative newcomer to the Registry and these Journals. Even so, I have come to look forward to seeing your presence here.  I hope you don't mind my saying that I find your enthusiasm, numismatic and otherwise, contagious.  

Understandably, you need to focus now on what is most important.

Best Wishes,

-Rick

Thanks gherrmann44, I really appreciate your comments.

I am not a teacher, but I was thinking it would be an interesting strategy for a class on ancient Roman or Greek culture to pass out ancient coins to the students and have them present an essay on their coin to their fellow students, say, as like an oral exam. The teacher could not only give a grade, but maybe even give accolades to best, most creative, inventive, etc., or even better, have the students vote.

Indeed a nice coin, and I truly appreciate the comments on being happy to "be in the game.

Happy New Year everyone!

On 12/12/2017 at 3:43 PM, rmw said:

Hopefully we are not entering a period with parallels to this part of Roman history.

rmw: I shudder at that thought - often!

RMW, sorry to hear you were ill, and glad to see you back!

Once again, well done - that is a very beautiful coin you have there!

Another Update on Page 3...

I received and updated the grading for the "Sisters of Caligula Sestertius".

The grade was deemed Ch F, Strike = 4/5, Surface = 2/5.  It was pretty much what I expected, although I admit to be slightly bummed at the surface grade  of 2/5 - "smoothing" was noted (but not my doing, of course).  Even so, I am satisfied with the grade, this is a very difficult coin to obtain in any grade, and, like many of this same issue, it is prone to smoothing, cleaning, etc.

This coin in particular is a very important historical coin, and I look forward to someday finishing and posting my Owner's Comments.

Grading came back on the Herod Antipas bronze = XF, Strike =4/5, Surface = 2/5.  Pretty much what I expected - the XF is a great grade for an ancient bronze, particularly an ancient Judaean example from this era. I am a bit puzzled by the  2/5 surface grade since no comments were made on the slab (no remarks about  tooling, smoothing, etc).  In any case, a relatively worthy grade.

MC: Thanks for your comments, I appreciate it.

The coins on this particular Page are relatively high grades for ancients.  In my opinion, I find it comparatively more accessible to obtain high-grade coins from 3rd vs earlier centuries of the Roman Empire's history. It is also my opinion that this reflects, at least in part, the rapid debasement of silver coins and the large quantity of them that were struck during the great "Crisis of the Third Century."  It follows that there are more coins in high grades available, not to mention the increased tendency to start to hoard coins (i.e., remove them from circulation) around this time.  It is astonishing to think that as a ballpark number about 100 million denarii were needed annually during this period to maintain Rome's military machine. Just to put in perspective, I don't think the US produced that many dollar coins annually until late 20th century?!