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Author Topic: Forum purchase o' the day  (Read 143725 times)

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Offline slokind

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« Reply #25 on: February 10, 2008, 02:37:23 am »
Meant to post this here the moment I got it.  Unique and wonderful little bronze.  But my photographic skills weren't up to it.  Still aren't, but this will do until I can replace it with better.
• 050208  Æ9 0.955g  Troas Antandros   Head of Apollo to r.  Rev., Head of roaring lion to r.  c. 400-284 BCE: late Classical.  It is hard enough to photograph something this size without its having been made shiny!  Anyway, it's a wonderful little coin.     
Pat L.
Here is the new image.

Offline areich

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« Reply #26 on: February 21, 2008, 02:10:09 pm »
This came today:



Bronze AE 29, BMC 38, gF, 13.808g, 27.7mm, 180o, obverse ANTONIOC GORΔIANOC CEBATOC (sic), radiate, draped and cuirassed bust right; reverse CEΛEVKEΩN TΩ PROC KAΛVKAΔ, Athena standing right, spear in right, shield in left, striking down serpent-footed giant, who is hurling a stone with right hand; nice green patina

ex Automan collection, ex FORVM

Andreas
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Offline moonmoth

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« Reply #27 on: February 21, 2008, 04:56:37 pm »
That's a nice one.  I have been watching out for a cheap serpent-footed giant for a while, on and off, but I don't think there are any .. it's not often you see the giant that clearly.
"... A form of twisted symbolical bedsock ... the true purpose of which, as they realised at first glance, would never (alas) be revealed to mankind."

Offline Jochen

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« Reply #28 on: February 21, 2008, 06:18:58 pm »
For the mythological background of this rev. please look at 'Gigantomachia - The battle of the Giants' in the thread https://www.forumancientcoins.com/board/index.php?topic=25089.0 replay #13!

Best regards

Offline Noah

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« Reply #29 on: February 21, 2008, 09:19:51 pm »
  It is hard enough to photograph something this size without its having been made shiny!  Anyway, it's a wonderful little coin.     
Pat L.

Yes it is Pat!  I do understand the problem with the shine many coins reflect when being photographed without professional equipment.  I often just ask the dealers for permission to use their photos (unless, of course, their photos look nothing like the coin - a problem I have encountered a couple of times).   Joe's photos typically are much better than I could "pull-off." 

Best, Noah

Offline areich

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« Reply #30 on: February 22, 2008, 01:21:33 pm »
Two more that came with the other:



Bronze AE 28, BMC 8 var, VF, 10.706g, 27.6mm, 180o, Ninica-Claudiopolis mint, obverse [...] MAXIMINVS [...], laureate, draped and cuirassed bust right; reverse COL NINI CLAUD, colonist ploughing behind two oxen, in background vexillum, star before colonist

Obverse countermarked with:
1. D containing dot, all within circle, circular punch, 6 mm, Howgego 669 (49 pcs).
2. Six-pointed star, incuse, 6 mm from point to point, Howgego 451 (45 pcs).
3 & 4. Nike right in oval punch, c. 5 x 8 mm, Howgego 262 (34 pcs).

The sequence of application appears to have been 669-451-262.

ex Automan, ex FORVM



Bronze AE 31, BMC 217 var, VF/F, 11.120g, 30.1mm, 180o, Laodikeia ad Lycum mint, obverse IOULIA DOMNA CE, draped bust right; reverse LAODIKEWN NEWKORWN PH, Tyche, wearing kalathos, cornucopia in left; full circle centering; scarce city

Two countermarks: bust right and monogram.

ex Automan, ex FORVM

With the one I already had and one more on the way that makes 5 coins from Automan's collection.
I'm very happy with them.


Andreas
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Offline Rupert

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« Reply #31 on: February 22, 2008, 02:28:44 pm »
Hi Andreas!

Your Gordian with Athena vs. Giant is die-identical to mine posted here:

https://www.forumancientcoins.com/board/index.php?topic=33721.0

Greetings,

Rupert

PS: And, actually, we had your coin in that thread too!
Ducunt volentem fata, nolentem trahunt.

Offline areich

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« Reply #32 on: February 22, 2008, 02:43:30 pm »
I must say, I think my picture is much better, $51 for this coin!
I paid double and it's still a very good deal.
Andreas Reich

Offline Jerome Holderman

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« Reply #33 on: February 23, 2008, 08:20:38 am »
Not a new Forvm Purchase, But My favorite to date ( Though I have one to challenge that on Lay away ;D) And I just took new photos so I thought I would add it here:
Orichalcum sestertius, Rome mint, 72 A.D.
Obverse: T CAESAR VESPASIAN IMP IIII PON TR POT II COS II, laureate head right; Reverse: VICTORIA AVGVSTI S C, Victory standing right, foot on helmet, inscribing shield hung on palm tree
Hendin 777, RIC 640, Cohen 383, Scarce
25.82g, 35.2mm
Purchased right here at Forvm Ancient Coins!


Offline Jochen

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« Reply #34 on: February 23, 2008, 09:04:04 am »
Hi Jerome!

Your coin reminds me of another coin which the same depiction on the rev. , which I purchased at Forum Ancient Coins some years before.

Trajan AD 98-117
AR - denarius, 3.27g, 18.0mm
Rome AD 101-102
obv. IMP CAES NERVA TRAIAN AVG GERM
head, laureate, r.
rev. PM TRP COS IIII PP
Victory inscribing shield set on cippus, foot on helmet
RIC II, 66; C. 247; BMC 112
aUNC, superb mint luster, sharp, light toning

Strack, Trajan, p.107: "A depiction which points to the end of a war or a campaign after a gained victory here as well as similar on the Trajan's column after the termination of the first Dacian war."(Curtis Clay)

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Offline curtislclay

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« Reply #35 on: March 06, 2008, 09:41:05 pm »
Here is a remarkable coin of Trajan and Nerva at Parium, that I acquired a year ago from Forvm, and that I have passed on the French national collection in Paris.  I wrote about this coin last March on the Forvm Roman Provincial board as follows:

Unexpected novelties seem to be almost the order of the day on provincial bronzes!

So the following coin of Trajan at Parium in Mysia, acquired recently from Forvm:

Obv:  IMP CAES NERVA TRAIA[N A]VG GERM DA, Laureate head of Trajan r.

Rev:  IMP NERVA - CAE A[VG], in exergue C.G.I.P., seated statue of Nerva, apparently laureate, details of clothing and seat unclear, extending r. hand (attribute, if any, unclear), scepter in l. hand.

AE 29, 22.12 gr, axis 1h, yellow metal.

Victory title DA(cicus) means after Dec. 102 AD.  The portrait is early, so coin may have been struck c. 103, but we can't be sure, since provincial mints often copied earlier portraits long after they had been superseded at Rome.

Rev. would appear to depict a statue of Nerva, perhaps erected locally.  Nerva is not called Divus, though he had been deifed several years earlier, soon after Trajan's accession.

The rev. type is entirely new, and I have it on the authority of Dr. Michel Amandry of Paris, who is preparing the Trajan and Hadrian volume of RPC, that large bronze coins of Trajan at Parium are otherwise unknown.  The four coins of Trajan at Parium in the Paris collection, for example, are AE 21, AE 21, AE 16, and AE 17, weights 7.11, 4.92, 4.50, and 2.87 gr.

Perhaps the two Paris AE 21s, SNG Paris 1465-6, were issued at the same time as my new AE 29.  They have a similar portrait, a similar obv. legend ending GERM DA, and the reverse:

OPTIMO PRINCIPI C.G.I.P. D.D., capricorn r. on globe, bearing cornucopia on its back.
Curtis Clay

Offline Jerome Holderman

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« Reply #36 on: March 08, 2008, 06:48:51 pm »
My latest from Forvm  ;D

Septimius Severus
Orichalcum Sestertius, Rome Mint, 210 AD
Obverse: L SEPT SEVERVS PIVS AVG, Laureate head right, drapery on left shoulder.
Reverse: PM TR P XVIII PP-SC, Two Victories attaching shield to palm tree, Two captives seated below
34.1mm, 26.475gm
RIC IV 796 Variant (Bust Type); Seaby, Coins of England 653


Offline slokind

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« Reply #37 on: March 10, 2008, 09:40:34 pm »
Mine is a Bonus EventusCrawford 416/1a.
The Sources speak of the statue of Bonus Eventus, so when I saw a pre-Imperial beauty, I didn't hesitate.  It certainly looks "Roman".  I am interested in types of Bonus Eventus in Rome.
As for the puteal on the reverse, art historians are accustomed to puteal reliefs that show Types of deities; this is a puteal, even labeled as such, but it needn't be a well head.  Looks like I'll have to pull out my text of the Catilinarians amd re-read it, too.  I bet those twin lyres are not merely decorative, but if Crawford can't come up with anything on them, I doubt I can.  Lewis's Elem. Latin Dictionary even cites puteal Libonis, not that that explains either what sort of puteal or what he (whichever one) had to do with it: "...because restored by Scribonius Libo", seems to be regarded by Crawford as an assumption.
But isn't this a beautiful coin?  I am so happy with it.


Offline gallienus1

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« Reply #38 on: March 11, 2008, 07:25:22 am »
It is beautiful Pat. I can't help feeling Republican silver coins are a little taken for granted, (not on this forum of course!). They are everything you could want in an ancient coin, struck in the years B.C., historically important, made in precious metal, and like yours often artistically arresting. I'm sooo glad that a lot of people don't think along the same lines. If they did I could never afford them!

Regards,
Steve

Offline moonmoth

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« Reply #39 on: March 11, 2008, 09:44:32 am »
There's lots of interesting material on this Puteal in the Dictionary of Roman Coins, which I copied out for the Numiswiki and also put on line with my own example of this coin:

PUTEAL —In the comitium, or place of popular assembly, at Rome, there is said to have been a spot, on which a statue of Accius Nævius (of Tarquinius Priscus' time) was placed, because there the celebrated augur was said to have severed, or caused the above-named king to sever, the whetstone with a razor. Under this statue there was (according to Dionysius Halicarnassus) a subterranean cavity, called puteus (a well or pit), in which beneath an altar, the whetstone of Accius was deposited; over the well a cover was placed, whence it derived its name of Puteal. But when the place fell into decay, Scribonius Libo, by order of the senate, caused it to be restored, which led to its being called PVTEAL SCRIBONII, as certain denarii show. —According to Beger's opinion, this covering to the well was called LIBO, because that person (see the Scribonia family) lived in the vicinity, or because it was erected or repaired at his expense. Thus Horace would seem to infer (lib. 1. ep. xix. l. 8 )

Forum Putealque Libonis

It was, however, not the tribunal itself, but only the neighbourhood of the tribunal. —One of the numerous opinions subsiisting, as well among ancient authors as among modern commentators, respecting this place, so often allluded to in Roman history, is this, that on some occasion or other, lightning had fallen upon it, and that in consequence a covered well was constructed there, under authority, by the functionary whose name it bears. Be this as it may, it seems agreed on all hands that the Puteal of Libo was much frequented, as a sort of exchange, by the commercial and banking classes of Rome —see Scribonia.

Spanheim (Pr. ii, p. 189) contends that the Puteal Libonis or Scribonii ought not to be confounded with the one constructed in the comitium, to which Cicero refers.

The object represented on medals of the Aemilia and Scribonia families looks more like an altar adorned with sculptured flowers than the tribunal or seat of a praetor. But the whole matter remains involved in obscurity, and is too much associated with fabulous history, and too little with events of any importance, to repay or deserve the learned researches and conjectures which have been bestowed on it.

(under Scribonia:) The Puteal of Libo, a celebrated place in Rome, was the round parapet of a wall with a cover to it, which Scribonius Libo had caused to be raised, by order of the senate, over a place where thunder had fallen, in the field of the Comitia, and near the statues of Marsyas and Janus. It contained within its enclosure an altar and a chapel. It seems, moreover, that it was a kind of tribunal or seat of justice, like our Court of Common Pleas.

Bill
"... A form of twisted symbolical bedsock ... the true purpose of which, as they realised at first glance, would never (alas) be revealed to mankind."

Offline maridvnvm

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« Reply #40 on: March 11, 2008, 12:37:06 pm »
Here is one of my favourite purchases from Forvm and oddly it isn't a Probus or from Lugdunum.

It is a Lifetime Issue silver tetradrachm of Alexander The Great from Babylon mint (Price 3599). The obverse is slgihtly off-centre but it is a coin I return to look at again and again. I don't collect Greek coins as a rule and this is one of the few exceptions. I saw it and couldn't help myself. The silver has a lovely golden toning to it that I find appealing.



A larger image can be seen in my gallery by clicking on the gallery image.

https://www.forumancientcoins.com/gallery/displayimage.php?pos=-34362
Regards,
Martin (always struggling to take a decent image of the coins in his collection!)

Offline slokind

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« Reply #41 on: March 11, 2008, 05:20:25 pm »
Martin and I have been patiently working our way to mastering closely comparable new DSLR cameras, a Canon (in US called Rebel) and a Nikon D80.  Each of us was struggling with beautiful big silver.  I'm taking RAW then using the .jpg copy to balance in Photoshop; he is using White Balance.  Both of us are trying to to test mastery by modifying as little as possible: basically it is just a question of Before or After White Balance.  My oven glass, 'milk glass', reflecting / glass-raising dish usually produces a variable bluish ground, but both of us are keeping the evidence of the 'natural' ground, trying to phstograph so that both files, obv. and rev., match each other and the coin.  Artistiic alteration can come later, if desired.
My Demetrius I Antioch tetradrachm is very shiny!  Since I got it from Forvm, and it is indeed beautiful, and so as to post with Martin, I am posting it here.
I think his Alex wins as COTD, though.
Pat L.

Offline wandigeaux (1940 - 2010)

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« Reply #42 on: March 12, 2008, 04:51:22 pm »
I have always enjoyed the type wherein a deity is shown supine, perilously yet nonchalanty born on the back of his/her associated animal (Dionysus on his panther, Hercules on his lion, and the others).  Thus, in a fit of irrational exuberance, the following from Forvm:

Alexandria, Hadrian, 135/36AD.  AE35.5, 22.57g 

Obv. AVT KAIC TPAIAN_ADPIANOC CEB
Rev: Zeus reclining left on eagle standing with spread wings, head left, dated LIH across fields.  Koeln1145v (placement of date), Milne-; Emmett -; Dattari-.

Anybody know what is in the exergue?
Hwaet!
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Offline Rupert

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« Reply #43 on: March 12, 2008, 05:07:04 pm »
Great coin!

As for the exergue, it looks almost like LIH once more, doesn't it?

Rupert
Ducunt volentem fata, nolentem trahunt.

Offline wandigeaux (1940 - 2010)

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« Reply #44 on: March 12, 2008, 05:12:16 pm »
It certainly does!  I don't have Koeln; perhaps that is where the date is on his specimen?  And thanks, Geo. S.
Hwaet!
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Offline curtislclay

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« Reply #45 on: March 12, 2008, 05:40:24 pm »
LIH is above Zeus' arm on Cologne 1145.

It would be nice to find another specimen from the same dies to confirm the second date in exergue.  However Dattari, by far the best collection of Alexandrian coins ever formed, didn't even have this type in year 18, let alone the double-dated one!
Curtis Clay

Offline wandigeaux (1940 - 2010)

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« Reply #46 on: March 12, 2008, 06:24:59 pm »
Thank you, Curtis.  And thank you for making me realize that Koeln is not a Herr Koeln, but the city!!  For some reason, that had never occurred to me!  Geissen!  One less umlaut to worry about.  Geo. S.
Hwaet!
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Offline silvernut

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« Reply #47 on: March 13, 2008, 11:13:19 am »
I just had to post this one, as I'm the one responsible for its very short display as part of FORVM's catalog... I still haven't received it (I bought it 2 days ago), but couldn't wait to post it.

I had been looking for a high quality, reasonably priced Balbinus denarius for quite some time, now, and didn't hesitate one minute when I saw this wonderful specimen on the "recently added" section. So thanks, Joe, for making it possible!! I can't wait to get my hands on it and put it under the loupe. Great double chin! Reverse is a bit off-centered and soft, but I think it's a very, very pleasing coin!!  :laugh:

Regards,
Ignasi

Offline slokind

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« Reply #48 on: March 15, 2008, 03:43:27 pm »
Above, Reply #28, I said I'd supply a worthy image as soon as I could make one, to replace what I posted. 
Photographing a 9mm coin with a 60mm macro lens: learning to fix RAW is all that works, and I have posted it, above at #28.
It is a lovely little late Classical bronze of Troas Antandros.
Pat L.

Offline maridvnvm

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« Reply #49 on: March 17, 2008, 06:43:53 am »
That is a lovely photograph of a lovely coin Pat.

You have been patient with me, encouraging me to take the photography of my coins more seriously, in an attempt to improve the quality of my output. You have save me quite some money in the process. I was going to buy myself a good macro lens for my Canon DSLR but have instead concentrated on trying to make the best of the equipment that I have. I think my results have improved somewhet and I have realised that I don't actually need the macro lens to obtain decent results, even on a relatively small coin. I don't have anything quite as small as your wonderful 9mm bronze as the smallest coin I have is a whopping 12.2 mm. The difficulty is that it is not in good shape and it is quite tricky to make the best of what is left of it.

This really shouldn't be in the CotD section but I don't care  :tongue:.

Image taken with a Canon EOS 350D (Rebel in the USA) and the standard 18-55mm lens. Captured as RAW, unadjusted in any way other than cropping, pairing obverse and reverse and then painting the background white for clarity.

Probus, Quinarius, RIC 267, Ex-Forvm



Regards,
Martin

 

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