My Top 25 Coins (Maybe)

Excellent detail on a small coin that's 2500 years old.

That's a beautiful coin--it has great details, and it's a coin that probably saw widespread use too. I keep looking for one of the Athens fractional silver with the owl.

On that subject, I had meant to ask about my Athens owl tetradrachm--would this be one feather or three?

Jeez...Steve! I just studied a few coins, and this is likely the "one feather" type.
Here is an earlier owl tet with three, clearly defined feathers:

This is a closer view of the 3 feather obol. Such small detail on an obol is hard to photograph. Imaging how hard it was to cut the die.

dougsmit => 0.7 grams ... ummm, what are the max/min diameters on that wee little owl coin?

=> oh, and I agree that the craftsmen that made these coin-dies were incredible (man, they must have had very small hands and/or a very steady touch!!)

7x10mm for the owl which is large. If you visit my pages on Tiny Treasures you can see them down to 5mm.
http://www.forumancientcoins.com/do...th/tiny.html

That page includes one more coin from the 25 and a couple that would have made the 50 had I decided to go that high. My 50 or 100 favorites would bore you all with way too many coins of Septimius Severus so 25 may be the better choice here.

#22 John VIII Byzantine 1423-1448 AD AR stavraton or 1/2 hyperpyron

Of the coins I'll be showing this is by far the latest date. It can only be considered 'ancient' if you allow all Byzantine coins that designation and is fully a millennium newer that the first coins I have seen called medieval in another context. No matter, this is the coin you get today. John VIII was the next to last Byzantine Emperor followed only by Constantine XI who was on duty when the Islamic conquest of Constantinople ended the Byzantine Empire in 1553. The coin is 6.7g of decent silver with typical late Byzantine art which might be considered a bit crude. Coins of John and Constantine look very much alike but Constantine's are more crude and much, much more rare. John VIII silver is not common but, like this one, tend to be missing a lot of the extensive legends around the bust of the Emperor in two concentric circles. What elevated this coin to my ranked list is the absolute luck that the strongest three letters in the legend remaining were IWN spelling 'John' at 1 o'clock. Of course I'd rather they read KWN which would make the coin a $10,000 Constantine XI but either is better than a coin attributable only by style to the cheaper ruler. The seller had another lacking IWN for $15 less so you can say I was willing to pay $5 a letter for the upgrade.

Usually we assign the portrait of Christ to the obverse of the coin but this specimen makes it clear that the anvil die was the one with John while Christ was on the reverse (punch) side shown by the way the metal curled around the edge of the off centered strike of the punch. This coin has been with me since 1999 and will remain my newest 'ancient' for the foreseeable future. I am barely interested in Byzantine coins but always like this big silver for a reason hard to explain.