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Posted 07/22/2012 3:22 pm
Since this thread got resurrected from the oblivion of last month's posts let me take the opportunity to mention my unpopular opinions. I love the Corinth Staters site but it falls short to me in two respects. First, it covers only the staters. Second it covers only a couple of centuries when Corinth issued the big fancy silver. Corinth issued a lot of coins that I find interesting that were smaller and or not silver. As wonderful as it is, I would like to see coins of these categories covered even 5% as well as the staters were. Regular readers here know I am a cheapskate and retired on fixed income so the likelihood of me outbidding you for staters gets more remote with every day. My job here today is to convince some of you that you need to keep me from buying any more coins of Corinth, period.
As usual, you can research the details to the degree your style of collecting requires.
First is my smallest Corinth silver. From the 5th century BC and weighing in at half a gram, this was sold to me as a trihemiobol or 1/4 drachm but the weight suggests to me that it might be smaller than that. The Pegasus is the standard early version with curled wing. You can get staters to match but they are not cheap. The reverse is the head of a Gorgon. Perhaps I should have entered her as my beautiful woman coin for the Smackdown? My example is a textbook example of a silver coin that has crystallized over the centuries. It is not corroded but the silver has reformed itself into a natural pattern reasonably common with pure silver coins this old. Don't drop it.
Next is another coin both too old and too small to make the site but it is a relatively large drachm (1/3 stater, I believe?). Again Pegasus is curly winged but the lady on the reverse is Aphrodite.
My last is the low end bronze choice for those of us with no money but a desire to own Greek. Mine is 12mm and not terribly pretty due to the surfaces but does show the qoppa under Pegasus clearly. The reverse is a trident. Nicer ones show minor symbols or letters flanking the trident so you might be able to match them to the starters. I believe the coin dates to the 4th century so someone might be able to tell me how many of these you could get for a stater of that same date. I do not know. Today they probably sell for about 1/20 the price of a stater of equal eye appeal but I've never seen a really nice one and I have seen mint state staters. There are quite a few ugly ones available.
http://www.wildwinds.com/coins/ric/..._BMC_645.jpg
If I were to be able to add one more Corinth to my collection it would be a Provincial that still used Pegasus as a reverse. The Caligula is nice but I'm fond of the Septimius Severus shown above at Wildwinds. There must be a thousand choices so there really is a Pegasus for every collection.
As usual, you can research the details to the degree your style of collecting requires.
First is my smallest Corinth silver. From the 5th century BC and weighing in at half a gram, this was sold to me as a trihemiobol or 1/4 drachm but the weight suggests to me that it might be smaller than that. The Pegasus is the standard early version with curled wing. You can get staters to match but they are not cheap. The reverse is the head of a Gorgon. Perhaps I should have entered her as my beautiful woman coin for the Smackdown? My example is a textbook example of a silver coin that has crystallized over the centuries. It is not corroded but the silver has reformed itself into a natural pattern reasonably common with pure silver coins this old. Don't drop it.
Next is another coin both too old and too small to make the site but it is a relatively large drachm (1/3 stater, I believe?). Again Pegasus is curly winged but the lady on the reverse is Aphrodite.
My last is the low end bronze choice for those of us with no money but a desire to own Greek. Mine is 12mm and not terribly pretty due to the surfaces but does show the qoppa under Pegasus clearly. The reverse is a trident. Nicer ones show minor symbols or letters flanking the trident so you might be able to match them to the starters. I believe the coin dates to the 4th century so someone might be able to tell me how many of these you could get for a stater of that same date. I do not know. Today they probably sell for about 1/20 the price of a stater of equal eye appeal but I've never seen a really nice one and I have seen mint state staters. There are quite a few ugly ones available.
http://www.wildwinds.com/coins/ric/..._BMC_645.jpg
If I were to be able to add one more Corinth to my collection it would be a Provincial that still used Pegasus as a reverse. The Caligula is nice but I'm fond of the Septimius Severus shown above at Wildwinds. There must be a thousand choices so there really is a Pegasus for every collection.
Edited by dougsmit
07/22/2012 3:25 pm
07/22/2012 3:25 pm
