It Only Took Me 43 Years Or ........ Dos Equis (Xx) Cæsars

That was a delight to look at!

What a nice collection of early bronzes.

Forty three years of (relatively) patient collecting
I feel I finally achieved the primary goal of assembling the "Rise" of the empire
The great Edward Gibbon sets the "Decline" with the reign of Commodus
Alone among the historians Gibbon sets the "Fall" as August 9 AD 378
The place Adrianople where "the Empire of the Romans came to an end"
Looks like I have another date to celebrate !

Thanks all for viewing
I hope you might noww understand it when I caution others that patience is a necessary ingredient
Now if only I hadn't sold off my Didius Julianus !
I would be one Pertinax away from something really impressive ..........

I have oft fantasized about what it might be like to go into the NYC International Show with a briefcase stuffed with cash and spend the weekend at the auctions and prowling about the floor
A person might acquire all of the above in a single weekend and leave feeling they had accomplished some goal of sorts
But then what ?
The items might simply end up being buried in a vault
Would I have gained by the experience ? Materially yes .........

The first purchase here was the Trajan
I was 18 years old and it set me back $48
That was big money for a kid in high school working in a factory part time for $1.85 an hour !
The last here was Otho and that was a mere €178
Nero was the only one that broke the magic 1000 mark and of all the only one that I ever felt I might have over paid was Caligula
I left the NYC back in 1992 and could not get him off my mind
The next day (Sunday) I called up the seller (J Kern) and struck a deal
Just under $500
That sounds quite reasonable today but in 1992 that was serious cabbage !
But we had no internet and Caligula was hard to find in a sharp state
It was actually the reverse that sold me
VESTA ........ If you look closely it is obviously the emperor dressed in "drag".
Madness overcomes us all on occasion

Congratulations on this amazing set FR!

Truly outstanding!

Glad you ended up getting the Otho, I was keeping my fingers crossed for you

My attraction to bronze is twofold
While in all honesty I can affirm my preference for the larger "format"
provided by the larger denominations
I can also affirm that of the coins shown above (20 Caesars plus 6) not one of them gives me the slightest doubts as to its authenticity
On a scale of 1-100 I am squarely in the 99.999% region
Due to my suspicious nature
I seriously doubt I would feel the same comfort level with 26 pieces of silver

Thank you Albert
I respect your 'learned' opinions
Some things can only be acquired by many many years of study
Patience being an excellent example !
I always try to caution new collectors against haste
And when given a choice ....... always buy the 'prettiest' one
No one ever said "I should have bought the ugly one"

Of the emperors shown above
Some (Caligula Trajan Hadrian) are not even my favorites in the collection
But they are rather pretty

Yes I do regret parting with Didius
He was a full weight sestertius which is very rare.
As ever the budget was tight. I listed it at what I thought was a high price. Actually triple what I had paid. When someone offered me double I thought long and hard about it.
We parted ways
So now I need to keep an eye out
Didius and Pertinax would bring me up through Thrax and son.
While I famously lost out on a low grade Gordian II ($10) a few years back I won't hold my breath waiting for another.
On a still night you can still here a faint echo through the seven hills of Worcester
"Noooooooooooooooooooooooooo"

with all the above
what a great collection
cheers