"New" camera alert! Coin photography is not my strong suit, but I just inherited a camera that's giving me better results – and much more quickly (which makes a big difference with a backlog of unphotographed coins!). Nothing fancy, just a Canon ELPH 300 w/ "macro" settings.
I've just uploaded the first coin I photographed with it:
https://www.forumancientcoins.com/gallery/displayimage.php?pid=181557
This
type is particularly interesting for the long controversy over its dating, ranging from the 4th cent. BCE to the end of
Marc Antony &
Cleopatra's reign 300 years later. (Actually, as noted in
BCD Olympia 307
[LINK], “The dating of this series of coins is more than just controversial.”) A
bit more on that in the
Gallery description.
As usual, I bought this coin just as much for its interesting "object biography," which I can almost trace to its unearthing c. 1887-1894 (
prob.
IGCH 216
[LINK]).
Solidus 108
[LINK] only gave the most recent collector (albeit a very distinguished one), the
German numismatist P. R.
Franke (1926-2018).
Fortunately, I also recognized it from the
Christopher Morcom (1939-)
Collection (
CNG 76.1). C. Morcom inherited it from
his grandfather,
Col. R. K. Morcom (1877-1961).
The coin is reportedly also ex-collection of the archaeologist/numismatist E. P.
Warren (1860-1928)
[bio LINK], and was Lot 809 in Naville Ars Classica XV (2 Jul 1930)
[LINK], from the
collection of a "recently deceased foreign amateur" (one of two
amateurs étrangers récemment décédés). R. K. Morcom may have
had personal knowledge that E. P.
Warren was one of those two “amateurs.”
Warren was also the “well-known amateur” in Sotheby,
Wilkinson & Hodge’s 2 May 1905 sale (see, e.g.,
Clain-Stefanelli 2002;
Spring 787;
Grierson [1966] 186). He died 18 months before Ars Classica XV, so it seems likely, but not certain, that
his remaining coins were included.
The coin probably originated from
IGCH 216
[LINK], a late 19th century
hoard (the
type was previously unknown). Several museums acquired specimens around the same time. I can’t yet confirm it with certainly, but I believe the coins were most likely dispersed by Canon [
Rev.] William
Greenwell (1820-1918)
[bio LINK], an archaeologist/collector active in Olympia at the time, from whom
Warren acquired most of
his coins, and who was
selling coins (including from Olympia) to the BM at the time.
