Damaged And Beautiful

Ugh, so many of my coins could be posted on this thread...

Here is a Half Schwartgroschen dated 1482 that was bent at one time. Later on, someone tried to flatten it back out and now the two pieces are just barely held together:

Makes me feel better about the Polish coin I posted upthread with a similar history.
Speaking of which, here's another one where, like samoth's Mary & Philip shilling, I opted for an example that (believe it or not) is relatively well struck for the type, though with an annoying defect (which I can't tell whether was a small/thin planchet, or PMD):

Copyright Salon Numizmatyczny Mateusz Wojcicki

Duchy of Kuyavia (Kujawia), denar 1236-1248.

This Groschen dated 1403 was a very difficult piece to find, so I jumped on it despite the monster edge chip:

Collecting medieval bracteates is often frustrating because the thin flans often break. This Pfennig from the second half of 12th Century Basel is a good example of the edge chipping that seems to be so common. For reference, despite having a 14 mm size, it weighs only 0.2 g.

This Quarter Siliqua from the 6th Century Gepids/Ostrogoths is beautiful in that it has tons of remaining detail, but the flan has been broken in a couple spots. I'd love to hear from someone more knowledgeable than I am as to why so many of these silver coins seem to have this problem so much of the time. Perhaps the Gepid silver ore had a little extra tin or lead in it?

All the coins on these pages show a lot of detail despite the obvious imperfections and have a beauty of their own. They show a lot of character built up over the centuries, and I wonder what stories they could tell?

As @samoth said:


I agree with that as I could not have afforded this Philip and Otacilia coin if it were in perfect condition. Despite the damage it is still a prized part of the collection.

That is a pretty sweet coin @novi, despite the damaged flan. Here is a badly damaged flan on an Antoninianus of Gordian III: