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Author Topic: The Papal Corner  (Read 151958 times)

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Offline Jochen

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Re: The Papal Corner
« Reply #50 on: June 09, 2009, 06:54:04 pm »
Hi Mark Trauernicht!

First of all Welcome on the Forum!
Follibus Fanaticus was very active until 2006, but since that time he has never posted again. Here is his e-mail address: jryan33@earthlink.net

Best regards

Offline Pabst Geschichte

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Re: The Papal Corner
« Reply #51 on: June 09, 2009, 07:08:51 pm »
@ jochen:

Thanks for the info...
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Offline Paleologo

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Re: The Papal Corner
« Reply #52 on: June 10, 2009, 10:45:57 am »
Great reading! Too bad the thread has gone deserted, apparently. Papal coins are my main interest and I will be happy to participate in any further discussion on the subject.

Regards, P.  :)
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Offline Pabst Geschichte

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Re: The Papal Corner
« Reply #53 on: June 10, 2009, 05:14:09 pm »
Here's one of my "pride and joy" papal coins. 

Oh sure, it ain't too pretty, but it's not holed, and since Marcellus II was pope for only 3 weeks in 1555, I was lucky to find it...(on eBay).  Guilio, Berman 1032, Cinagli 1
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Offline Paleologo

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Re: The Papal Corner
« Reply #54 on: June 11, 2009, 08:47:02 am »
Surely this is a rare coin, condition is more or less what you can expect for these coins (about fine or so) plus it's not holed, although portrait coins used to be pierced more often than those bearing arms. Too bad the coin has a weak spot right on the shield, otherwise it should show a nice "speaking" arms displaying a crouching deer (Cervini from cervo, Italian for deer). I don't have Muntoni at hand now but I can predict the catalogue number to be very close to 1  ;)

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Maffeo

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Re: The Papal Corner
« Reply #55 on: June 11, 2009, 09:15:37 am »
Great to see this thread coming to life again! Shall we do our best to keep it active again?
Surprisingly, even though Marcellus II reigned for only 21 days, his giulio from the Roman mint is not difficult to find (the giulio from Rome of Adrian VI who reigned for 20 months is much rarer), and it appears often enough in auctions. It is, though, very difficult to find in a grade higher than Fine (= the Italian MB).

Offline Pabst Geschichte

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Re: The Papal Corner
« Reply #56 on: June 11, 2009, 09:24:25 am »
Probably so.  I don't have a copy of Muntoni myself (the last time I used it was after a subway ride to the Library of Congress to ID some Ferrara quattrini of Paul V), so I rely on Berman and Cinagli for attributions, and Ryan too for 1268-1534.

Allow me to vent on Krause (a common sport, to be sure!).  

I just bought a lot from the UK that contained a few papal and some presumably Venetian copper/billon coins.  I don't really collect the Italian states outside of Papal, so I had to do some digging to figure out what I had.  

Krause for the 17th Century. If you are a collector of Venetian coins, you are out of luck, unless you collect crown-size silver coins, or gold. Even though they are on the 4th edition now of the 1601-1700 book, they STILL don't have anything to speak of re: Venice, surely one of the more important Powers of that age!!  

And don't even get me started on their complete lack of dealing with Russian wire money!!

Sheesh!

Eventually, I did manage to ID the two coins, via other sales online and here on Forvm.  No thanks to Krause.
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Offline Pabst Geschichte

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Re: The Papal Corner
« Reply #57 on: June 11, 2009, 09:33:03 am »
@ Maffeo:

True, the Marcellus II isn't too dramatically rare; I was just pleased to find it for a reasonable price on eBay.  For Hadrian VI, I had to content myself with the anonymous ½ giulio of Piacenza.
(Berman 788, Cinagli 21(var), Ryan 217:16)
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Offline Joe Sermarini

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Re: The Papal Corner
« Reply #58 on: June 11, 2009, 11:17:09 am »
Unfortunately Follibus Fanaticus was, at that time, apparently the only one on the board collecting Papal coins.  I wish a few Papal coin collectors had been members back then and shared his interest.  I hope he is well and I wish he would rejoin us now that there are others here to share his interest.   
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Offline Pabst Geschichte

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Re: The Papal Corner
« Reply #59 on: June 11, 2009, 11:39:18 am »
@ Joe: 

I know what you mean.  I only 'discovered' this board myself last week...and I've been collecting papal for years!

Anyway, I shot him an email to tell him that The Papal Corner has 'come back to life'. 

Hopefully that'll get him interested in posting here again.
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Offline Paleologo

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Re: The Papal Corner
« Reply #60 on: June 11, 2009, 11:56:40 am »
I bear with Joe's wish that FF is fine and shows up on FORVM again. He is John C. Ryan, if I understand correctly? His book is on my purchase list, together with a few others that have been mentioned in this thread.

@PG : your Hadrian VI 1/2 giulio may be anonymous, but is remarkably well preserved for the type :)
I agree W.C. is basically useless for the majority of XVI-XVII c. Italian State coinage. If you understand some Italian, you should definitely buy Muntoni: no prices, no rarity indicators, but ALL types are pictured and there is a huge wealth of additional information. The 1996 reprint is of reasonable quality and reasonably priced (if 300 € can be reasonable for a book, but the original issue goes above 1K€, if you can find it). It was originally printed in the early 1970s so it starts to show its age, but it is still the foundation of any library on Papal numismatics in my opinion.

@Maffeo: bentrovato !  ;)
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Offline Pabst Geschichte

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Re: The Papal Corner
« Reply #61 on: June 11, 2009, 12:32:10 pm »
@ Paleologo:

Yeh, FF and John C. Ryan are one in the same.  He did respond to one of my emails, so the email posted by Jochen above is correct.


A little digging on various used-book sites turned up Muntoni for anywhere from $719.22 (not sure if original or the 1996 reprint), $850 (for the reprint, from Charles Davis, whose books seem to run a bit high) to over $1200 on Amazon from one of their sellers. 

I only wish I could find it for 300 Euros (~$450 US)!
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Offline Pabst Geschichte

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Re: The Papal Corner
« Reply #62 on: June 11, 2009, 06:16:07 pm »
Here's a question that has vexed me for a long time:

We all know that most catalogs show, for the 1866 Lira, a small, medium and large head variety. 
The small and the large variety, I understand.

What I have yet to see a photograph of, is of the MEDIUM head variety. What does the Medium head look like?  Can anyone give me a written description of the difference(s) between it and the small and large head varieties?

Or better still, photos?
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Maffeo

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Re: The Papal Corner
« Reply #63 on: June 11, 2009, 06:40:58 pm »
@ Paleologo:

Yeh, FF and John C. Ryan are one in the same.  He did respond to one of my emails, so the email posted by Jochen above is correct.


A little digging on various used-book sites turned up Muntoni for anywhere from $719.22 (not sure if original or the 1996 reprint), $850 (for the reprint, from Charles Davis, whose books seem to run a bit high) to over $1200 on Amazon from one of their sellers. 

I only wish I could find it for 300 Euros (~$450 US)!

Several Italian/San Marino numismatic online  stores offer Muntoni (always the 1996 Urania reprint) for between 300-350 euro. If you do a thorough search you might find it for just a little less (say, 290). But then you have to add the postage, which can be quite expensive.

The original edition is a rarity in its own right now and very expensive, at least 1000 euro and usually much more. I bought mine in the mid 1970s for the then equivalent of about $200 and it's now worth well over ten times that. Sometimes I think numismatic books are a far better investment than the coins themselves.  ;D


Offline Pabst Geschichte

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Re: The Papal Corner
« Reply #64 on: June 11, 2009, 06:54:02 pm »
@ Maffeo:  Hmmm, ok.  Thanks.  I'll have to look into that a little more...

@ everyone:  Here's a photo of both the small and the large bust varieties of the 1866 Lira.  What does the medium bust variety look like?
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Re: The Papal Corner
« Reply #65 on: June 12, 2009, 02:51:35 am »
I find it very difficult to distinguish the small from the medium, and I suspect most dealers do as well. Here are pics of what are supposed to be examples of the small and the medium, but I can't tell them apart.

Offline Paleologo

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Re: The Papal Corner
« Reply #66 on: June 12, 2009, 07:18:48 am »
Here's a picture of an overlay job I did for the Italian forum Lamoneta.it  some time ago. You can spot the only tiny difference between small bust and medium bust in the area of the Pope's nape. The grey shadow is from the medium bust (lower layer) showing through the small bust (upper layer). This goes well together with what is found in standard Italian coin catalogs. The common knowledge is you can tell s.b. from m.d. by measuring the edge of the Pope's cap with a caliper. This should be ca.6 mm in s.b., ca.7 mm in m.b. (try if you can  ;D)

Regards, P.  :)
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Offline Pabst Geschichte

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Re: The Papal Corner
« Reply #67 on: June 12, 2009, 08:41:14 am »
Thanks Maffeo and Paleologo.

So you are saying measure the gap from the pope's skullcap to the leftmost part of the letter M in MAX to get the (0.6mm vs. 0.7mm) measurement?

Yet from what I see from Paleologo's overlay, it looks like the skullcap is in exactly the same place in both coins.

(for the record, on my "small bust" illustrated in my last post, the gap between the zuchetto and the left upright in the M is right at 0.7mm)
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Offline Paleologo

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Re: The Papal Corner
« Reply #68 on: June 12, 2009, 10:45:57 am »
So you are saying measure the gap from the pope's skullcap to the leftmost part of the letter M in MAX to get the (0.6mm vs. 0.7mm)
measurement?


No sorry, I think I did not make it clear enough. I mean you need to measure the segment the connects the front tip of the cap (where it meets the forehead in the profile) to the rear tip (where it meets the hair). The length of this segment should be ca.6 mm in the case of s.b., ca.7 mm in the case of m.b. Anyway, since an image is better than a thousand words... I mean measuring the red line in picture below.

Hope this helps  :)

PS@PG: did you get my message?
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Offline Pabst Geschichte

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Re: The Papal Corner
« Reply #69 on: June 12, 2009, 04:35:50 pm »
@ Paleologo:

Yes, I did get your message re: Muntoni. I'll have to check into that...(hopefully he takes PayPal or something similar).  Even if shipping from Italy to the US is fairly outrageous, it still will beat paying over twice that much for the same books here in the USA.  Thanks!!!

thanks also for the updated photo re: the small and medium 1866 Lira.



I'll give a full report of the coins I just bought at the Whitman Books Coin Show in Baltimore.
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Offline Pabst Geschichte

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Re: The Papal Corner
« Reply #70 on: June 15, 2009, 04:47:01 pm »
Here's an interesting website.
 
The National Conservation Institute, Administration of the State Chateau - Archbishop Chateau and Gardens in Kromeriz
Numismatic collection of Olomouc archiepiscopate, in the Czech Republic.
 
Apparently one (or several!) of the Archbishops in the 18th Century were avid collectors and, not surprisingly, there is an extensive collection of Papal coins and medals here.  The best part is, the entire collection is photographed--obverse and reverse--and the database has a fairly powerful search engine!
 
Check it out here: http://coins.azz.cz/index.php?lng=2
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Offline Paleologo

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Re: The Papal Corner
« Reply #71 on: June 16, 2009, 09:42:03 am »
Very good pointer to a collection that was totally unknown to me before. It seems to have been cataloged professionally. Too bad one cannot get a magnification of coin pictures, apparently.
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Offline Pabst Geschichte

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Re: The Papal Corner
« Reply #72 on: June 16, 2009, 11:02:53 pm »
@ Paleologo:  I agree.  Magnification would be of great benefit to that site!  And a great benefit to us!

Here's something I bought at the coin show in Baltimore this past weekend.  1/3 grosso of Alexander VI (Berman 539, Ryan 213:14; Cinagli 22), for a surprisingly reasonable price.

It was apparently pierced at one time, then plugged with a similar grade of silver.  Looks like the coin was double-struck, or at least seems to be in the area of the tiara.
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Offline Paleologo

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Re: The Papal Corner
« Reply #73 on: June 17, 2009, 09:46:02 am »
for a surprisingly reasonable price
May I ask... ?

BTW, I try not to buy pierced/trimmed/repaired coins. I know this will cut me off from the chance of buying several papals at reasonable prices, but I take it. Being on a somewhat limited budget, I usually rather go for common coins in high grade. Pure matter or aesthetics, of course.

Quote
It was apparently pierced at one time, then plugged with a similar grade of silver. 
Funny piercing, done outside the standard area (top-center). Not for devotional purposes of course, maybe it was just an accident. Or maybe was done to deface the Borja bull? Just rambling...  ;)

Quote
Looks like the coin was double-struck, or at least seems to be in the area of the tiara.
Yes, it seems so, although pictures are not enough for me to make it out clearly. Nothing strange here anyway  :)
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Offline Pabst Geschichte

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Re: The Papal Corner
« Reply #74 on: June 17, 2009, 10:02:01 am »
I paid $35 for it.

Yeh, it would be interesting to know (but even more fun to speculate!) why the coin was holed there.  I can imagine one of the--many--enemies of the Borjas drinking in a tavern somewhere in Rome...it's 1503 and Alexander is (finally!) dead...chose this way of celebrating by stabbing the coin right up the Bull's ass with his stiletto!

I'm sure the truth is a lot less interesting.  :-)

I'm not too big on getting holed coins myself. Only if they're heavily discounted will I even consider it.  That said, I have several holed and sometimes repaired specimens of various popes, mostly late 17th-early 18th Century.
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