My Top 25 Coins (Maybe)

#1 My Favorite Coin

Here we are at the end of the road. I am not even going to explain the coin here since it has been the subject of one of my oldest pages and anyone interested can read about it here:
http://www.forumancientcoins.com/do...h/feac6.html



I have photographed the coin several times in the half century I have owned it and it is getting darker in tone as the years progress. I was in high school when I bought it. #1 came from an unillustrated fixed price list issued by a dealer in California. At that period my coins were mostly in the 50 cent to $5 range and came from pickout pots in coin shops downtown Indianapolis, Indiana. I do not recall any of the names or exact locations but all required climbing stairs in old buildings since coin shops, even then, were not usually huge businesses with great locations. This coin was listed at $13.50. I thought it was interesting but was not sure I wanted to spend twice as much as I had ever spent before on one coin. I did. In the mid 1970's I sold my collection to that same dealer but flagged a few coins including this one requesting a separate price quote. The offer on this was no more than any other junk denarius so I told him to send it (and two others) back. I am today so glad that he was unwilling to offer even half what I had paid him. I wish I had kept my Caligula, Claudius, Nero, Didius Julianus and Manlia Scantilla sestertii but he was willing to pay what I thought fair. All together I sold about 100 coins for about $500. That was long before anyone seemed to care about Eastern Septimius coins. I wonder today how many dealers would reject the coin at $13.50? It is not my rarest, not my prettiest, not the most interesting to most people of all my coins but I declared it 'My Favorite Coin' when I wrote that web page in 1997 and have not seen fit to downgrade it yet. What would it take to slide in under it? I really don't know. I always liked this one but might want to hold out for one with a VICTOR IVST reverse? That would be hard to turn down if you have one to trade.
http://www.acsearch.info/record.html?id=370157

Great coin - great thread. Thanks for doing all the hard work.

Nice coins and a very educational thread Doug, thanks for sharing

Well done, comrade ... you made it through your 25 coin-presentation, looking fine and looking like a coin genius!!

=> well done, dougsmit! (thanks for letting us into your coin-mind!! => it's amazing) ...




... next!

Thanks, Warren. Since I am relatively new here, I would not have seen this otherwise.

When I read stuff like this I realize how very little I know about the subject.

John

Doug, just wanted to say thanks for this topic (made an account to do so!). I enjoyed the history lesson for each coin and the personal stories to go with them.

This is one of the most interesting threads ever on this forum, but it started long ago and if you are new you might not have seen it. So, I am "replying" to bring it back to the top so new people can read it (and long-time members can reread it--I just did, all 18 pages.

Is that... an Annia Faustina?

That is the rarest coin for Severan fanatics. Only 5 denarii known. 2 available for collectors with the last one selling for $190,000. http://www.goldbergcoins.com/view-a...6/lot/79091/