Come on guys and girls, when free to DREAM think BIG! What about the gold 20 stater of Eucratides I, the largest gold coin known to be minted in antiquity...
I agree that if you're going to dream then this is the one to dream about.....it cost five lives in modern times and here is the story behind the coin extracted from Frank Holt's
A History in Silver and Gold:
In fact, no single
Bactrian coin has ever caused such a stir as
his great gold masterpiece. This massive 20-stater coin is of the
standard Eucratides
type, with
portrait of the
king on the
obverse wearing a commander's cloak, a royal diadem and a great plumed helmet decorated with the ears and horns of a
bull. The
reverse offers the king's usual
type, two mounted horsemen—the heavenly twins, the
Dioscuri of Greek
legend—charging to the right. Eucratides's usual titles appear on the coin as well. It is not the
style, exceptionally
fine though it is, which makes this, in the words of one expert, "the rarest coin in the world"; it is the extraordinary size. At 63 millimeters in
diameter (2½ inches) and more than 169 grams (six ounces) of
Bactrian gold, it is the largest such coin ever minted in the ancient world, apparently to celebrate the king's conquest of Demetrius of
India. There is only one specimen known in the world today—but that such a huge coin could escape the melting
pot at all is amazing luck for us.
The unusual story of this coin's discovery can be tracked down through various newspaper accounts from over a century ago. In June of 1867, a
French numismatist associated with the British Museum was dining with a group of collectors in
London. One of the guests told about a strange encounter he
had had that day with a shabby beggar trying to sell an ancient coin. He described a gold piece so large that all at the table agreed it must be a forgery. Yet, as the conversation drifted to other numismatic topics, the
French expert could not get the gold coin out of
his mind. Finally, in what he called "a fit of numismatic fever," he excused himself and set out to follow the trail of the beggar. When the two finally
met late one night in a ramshackle
London flat, the expert demanded to see the coin at once. The beggar explained that he
had come all the way from Bukhara, where he and six others
had found the coin. In a matter of minutes, he said, daggers were drawn and five of the
men were dead. The two survivors agreed to smuggle the prize to Europe and share whatever
price it brought. Then,
his story told, the mysterious fellow took off
his old coat,
his shirt and
his undershirt; he lifted
his arm and pulled from
his armpit a filthy, sweaty leather case with the gold coin sewn inside.
With an "electric shock," the
numismatist held the coin and convinced himself that it was no forgery—but he knew that he must conceal
his enthusiasm as he bargained down the
price. The traveler from Bukhara insisted upon £5000 for the giant coin; the expert handed it back and wrote a check ... for £1000, adding coolly that this was
his offer for the next 20 minutes. After that, he said, "I'll give you only £800, and so on until I get to £500. If you don't close the deal tonight, tomorrow I will not take the coin at any
price."
They stared at each other for more than 19 minutes. Then the beggar snatched the check for £1000, and handed over the coin.' "This," reported the
numismatist to the new papers, "is the rarest coin in the world, and the one for which the highest
price has been paid. Since it cost the lives of five
men, I do not think anything more was paid for it than it was really worth. It ought to have been saved for the delectation of numismatic amateurs in all times to come, even
had fifty or one hundred lives been sacrificed."
If you have in mind some numismatic delectation of your own, however, do not ask to see the coin at the British Museum. Though associated with that great institution, the buyer was a Frenchman first of all. Through the special attentions of Emperor Louis-Napoléon, the 20-stater gold piece of Eucratides was immediately purchased by the Bibliothèque
Impériale, now the Bibliothèque Nationale, in
Paris.