My Top 25 Coins (Maybe)

I find myself fortunate to be able to view the history that you have laid out in your top 25 Doug. You are incredibly knowledgeable on the subject of ancients.
The detail is astounding!

These threads showing our top coins are fascinating! dougsmit, once you are done showing your last two coins I will show off my top 25, too! I can't wait...I already have them all picked out.

Sadly, the reverse is quite worn ... but as I'd mentioned earlier, I purchased the coin because it just had such a nice ol' cozy feel to it (and the bronzy colour triggered the ol' eye appeal sensor => so wham, I lunged at it!!)






... my precious

Nice coin, beautiful warm tone.

#2 Julia Domna AR Denarius "Emesa" mint VICTOR IVST AVG seated

Isn't she ugly? Coin #2 is listed in standard references as a hybrid or mule combining the obverse of Julia Domna from "Emesa" with a 'reverse of Septimius Severus or Pescennius Niger'. The listing even goes back to Cohen who listed the coin in 1884 from a coin in the Cabinet of France. I have not seen that coin but have been told that it still exists. From the listing, I gather it is missing the G at the end of the reverse legend which is partly indicated on my coin. As far as I have been able to tell, those two are all that survive.



I can not accept calling this coin a hybrid. First, there are no known examples of a seated Victory VICTOR IVST AVG coin for either Septimius or Pescennius. All of their coins are Victory walking types. Second, Hybreds are usually unofficial coins but this coin uses a common regular mint obverse die for Julia. Third, there are several other reverse types for Julia from this mint that use 'masculine' types so I suspect that the Eastern mints just did not care that Rome usually matched the portraits of the empress with feminine types only.

In addition to being a rare coin, #2 is a obvious match for the coin shown as #3 and other VICTOR IVST types. When I saw it, I wanted it badly. The coin appeared on ebay in 1999 as part of a group of 35 mixed, mostly low grade, denarii. They were sold (who remembers the term?) by asking bids on a number of coins (1 to all) with the coins going randomly to the top 35 bids. To be sure I got it I would have to bid a high number on all 35. The price for all would be set by the level of the 35th highest bid so bidding $50 each on 35 coins would have meant I had to pay $50 each for all. Instead I took a big chance and only bid on 34 coins so the price would be set by the highest other bid which meant I could lose this coin to that bidder if the seller chose to send it to him. I won the coins at about $10 each and, to my great relief, got an email from the seller stating that the other winner really wanted a Commodus in the group and asked if I would object to him getting it. I really hope he is still enjoying that Commodus. I ended up keeping 6 of the other coins but sold the rest for a bit less than the $10 I had in them (on average). Still I would have paid $350 for this coin alone (I was not as big a cheapskate back then as I am now --- almost).
http://www.forumancientcoins.com/do...h/bride.html
I wrote a page about the coin which I called 'The Bride' and always considered it 'Most Fun to Write' of all of my pages. Yes, I wish #2 were not so badly cleaned and rough but it is what it is and I'm glad to have it. If you don't know what is coming tomorrow, you simply have not been paying attention.

dougsmit,

Thank you for taking the time to give us a history lesson on each coin's, I want to buy each of these coin's,...and spending some time cleaning more of my coin's, hoping to find some like yours....

There are quite a few people more well studied in these coins than I am. One was my friend Roger Bickford-Smith who died and left his papers to the project being headed by Curtis Clay who I hope will get around to publishing during my lifetime. There is a lot of die information available including plaster casts of most of my coins and photos of the others. I really don't know the relative priority of the various RIC projects he has but do not believe the Severans are first.