Yet Another Forum Game - Numismatic Go Fish!

Whatever you think an appropriate valuation would be.

I do a lot of Historical era Tokens, coins and some Notes. Most all come in lots or if a specific coin is usually much more than the $5 limit(unless I get a near slick!) Some periods of US history such as the Hard Times Tokens of 1833-1844 or British Conder Tokens of the 1790's and early 1800's. But even the cheapest lot, of 5 Conders, was $33 so that's out. So here are some Early German States and French Provinces Notgeld. These are Emergency currency after the devastation of WW1, made usually of tin, steel, aluminum and brittle Iron, materials were hard to come by and value was in flux, with drastic inflation coming with the introduction of the Weimar Republic. This group of coins is from 1918 through 1921. The total price of both these lots is $18.29 for 16 coins, a little more than a buck apiece. If only one coin allowed...take your pick!

Nice entries so far!

@Mont, the first co-emperors of Rome were actually Marcus Aurelius and Lucius Verus who were adopted brothers under Antoninus Pius.

The Gallienus was important because it marked the turning point in the Crisis; when Valerian was captured by Shapur, Gallienus' support almost evaporated and sparked what the Historia Augusta calls the Reign of Thirty Tyrants. A lot of the Tyrants are dubious or demonstrably fictitious, but Gallienus faced at least four or five unsuccessful usurpations, lost the provinces of Syria, Gaul, Hispania, and Brittania to successful rebels, and was ultimately killed in a successful coup by Claudius II. During this time, the antoninianus fell in silver purity from about 20% to under 5%, and all lower denominations disappeared. Although the next emperors stabilized the empire and reclaimed the lost provinces, the economy was beyond salvage, and the precarious political situation forced Domitian to dissolve the Principate and thus the last shred of illusion that the Emperor was anything less than an absolute monarch.

I got my start on buying bulk lots of ancients, so it's impossible to pick just one!

I got this in a "just for fun" lot of tiny culls; I think 10 ancients for $5 shipped.

Pontius Pilate, Roman Prefect under Tiberius who arrested and sentenced Jesus to crucifixion. He is poorly attested outside of the bible, but Roman Historians mention that he was an insensitive jerk who tried to shove his religious beliefs on the Jews; this is confirmed on his coinage. Upon the death of Tiberius in 37, he was dismissed and left Judaea.

Obv: Augur's staff (lituus) with Tiberius Caesar in Greek
Rev: Date within wreath




Got this one in an incredible lot; worked out to be about $2.50 per coin, and had lots of other goodies as well


Judaea, Herod Antipas (Antipater)
Bronze full unit (dupondius), Tiberias mint

Herod Antipas was the younger of Herod the Great's children, and was pushed into an unhappy political alliance with the daughter of his neighboring king, Aretas IV of Nabatea. He had an affair with his sister in law, Herodias. His wife was forced to flee to her father, sparking a war while Antipas arrested and executed John the Baptist for speaking critically of his actions. This war shook Rome's faith in the Herodian tetrarchy, and led to tightening of Roman control, pushback from the Jews, and finally the Jewish Revolt of 68-69 that destroyed the Second Temple.

Obv: TIBE/PIAS within wreath
Rev: HWRODU TETRARCOU around palm frond (worn nearly smooth)





Most of my Roman coins that are historically significant are more expensive than $5, this one was in a lot that averaged $1 each.

Claudius II "Gothicus" AE double denarius
Trophy of arms with prisoners, VICTORIAE GOTHIC
Minted to commemorate the Battle of Naissus, 268-69



Migrations of Huns and other Central Asian peoples in the early 3rd century created an accordion effect of displacements that ultimately pushed the Germanic and Gothic people into Roman territory in unprecedented numbers, starting in the 230s. The Romans were ill-equipped to deal with these incursions, and lost as many battles as they won. This was a morale disaster, and a primary factor behind the Crisis that saw over 20 emperors rule in a span of 50 years. This battle however was such a blow to the Goths that it essentially crippled their army and reduced their invasions to small raiding parties. It was for this battle that Claudius II earned the name Gothicus, and despite his death of plague just months later, his legacy was so lasting that his posthumous deification coins were still being made half a century later by Constantine the Great, who claimed to be a great grand-nephew of Claudius II to garner support for his claim to the purple.

Wow. I think I would preferred being beheaded over that any day.

I get a lot of my coins from bargain bins or other cheap purchases, but I'm legitimately not sure which of them are the most historically significant. And a few of the obvious candidates were bought for well over $5.

But there's that one coin that I keep having a mini-lecture about every time I show it off. If perhaps only because said mini-lecture is the only way to explain why I like that coin so much, because there's not really that much to look at on it...



Kingdom of Judea, Hasmonean dynasty, Mattathias (Mattatayah) Antigonus, AE 8 prutot, ca. 40-37 BC
Hendin 1162 (formerly 481), Numista 108817; 24x22 mm, 13.85 g
Bought from a 150 ruble (~$2.5) bargain bin at Hobby Market in Moscow


(The following text is mainly based on what I usually say at the mini-lectures, plus a bit of making it up as I go; which admittedly is how said mini-lectures tend to work in the first place.
As such, I apologize in advance for any resulting historical errors.)

(I also apologize in advance for the style. For some reason I'm not in the mood for writing it out properly.)


Anyway, the Hasmonean dynasty - you've heard of the Hasmonean dynasty, right? No? That's the Kingdom of Judea, no, not that Kingdom of Judea, the other one, besides, that one's actually the Kindgom of Judah... whatever.
Founded by the Maccabees, which you might have heard about, because they're in the Bible. I think. Haven't read it in years.

Anyway, they're the ones who finally got independent from all the Persians and the Macedonians and the Seleukids, in around the second century BCE, and they kind of just were there for a while.
Then the Romans came in and tried to make it part of the Empire, um, I'm not sure, it might have still been the Republic at that point? And they didn't quite get it, and they tried again, and again, and eventually they got all tired of it and just came in with a huge army.
And leading that army was Herod the Great; you've definitely heard of that guy.

So anyway, about the coins. The Hasmoneans didn't really normally make any big coins, only small copper ones, like the lepta - you've heard of leptas, right? That one is definitely in the Bible.
I think I have one of those here, though it might be actually two leptas, not sure, and it has a lot of very small letters on it that I can't read so I'm not sure what they actually say.

(It's from the same bargain bin, so it's stored in the same ziploc bag, and thus when I'm showing this coin I usually can show that one too. Should take a pic of it someday - it seems to be either an overstrike or a double strike, and I can't read enough of it to tell.
For the record, it weighs 2.02 grams, so it's a prutah, but I could hardly expect most of the people I showing it to to know what a prutah is, while they can usually get "two leptas", especially since that's what the Biblical quote says in the first place.)

Anyway, the Hasmoneans only made small coins, but then the Romans came in. The Romans never really were much about small copper, not until the fourth century anyway - which is another story entirely - but they sure did like their big copper.
So when Herod started conquering Judea, he also started making new coins for it with his name, and he didn't just make the normal coins of like one lepta and two leptas, but he also made much larger coins, all the way up to sixteen leptas.

And at the time, the previous ruler of Judea had just died, so they got a new one, Mattatayah Antigonus. I mean, Mattatayah was his Hebrew name and Antigonus was his Greek name, not sure why he had two, but whatever.
And apparently Mattatayah Antigonus decided that Herod's new huge coins were actually a nice idea, because he ended up making some huge coins of his own.
So he continued making the old small coins of one lepta and two leptas, and he also made new large coins of eight leptas and sixteen leptas, same size as Herod's coins, but with his own designs, and with his name, yes, both of them, one on each side. They mostly didn't actually fit. It's a common problem with ancient coins.

And this coin you see here? Mattatayah Antigonus, sixteen leptas. You can see how thick it is. They had to make special casting lines for the planchets, and then they broke the planchets off the lines before striking them, and it wasn't very even, so this one ended up with those two little bumps where the line was, see? Very interesting coin.

So, as you probably can guess, Herod ended up winning. It took about three years, approximately from 40 to 37 BCE, because the Jews of Mattatayah Antigonus really didn't like being conquered by the Roman, um, still not sure if it was already the Empire by that point but it might as well have been either way, but Herod did have a much larger army, so basically he won.
And that means Mattatayah Antigonus only ended up reigning for three years, most of which he was frantically trying to defend his country from Herod's army. So his coins are kind of uncommon, especially the new larger ones, though I think the smaller ones were too, don't recall exactly.

Anyway, Herod won, and kept ruling until he died in 4 BC, yes, I know that doesn't work, that's because Christ wasn't actually born in 1 CE, if he really existed, I mean, but someone got the calendar wrong in like the 6th century and it stuck.
Herod was succeeded by a relative, forgot who exactly, and I think he was also called Herod so it's a bit confusing, and then there were a few others, I don't recall much about them.
Then eventually around 70 CE the Jews got totally tired of being under the Romans and rebelled, and it didn't really work out for them because the Roman Empire, definitely the Empire by then, got an even more huge army and basically destroyed everything, including the Second Temple, by the way. But that's a completely different story entirely.


...Yes, I know, this huge rant, um, I mean mini-lecture, is probably full of assorted historical errors. (Also it's in terrible style.)
In particular, it makes zero mention of Parthia, because I only found out about their involvement while researching stuff for this post today.

But yeah, last ruler of independent Judea before Herod came in, or, rather, while Herod was coming in? And a new huge denomination apparently made to compete with Herod?
It's hard to get more historically significant than that. Not on the level of my collection, anyway.

Please forgive me, I really dropped the ball.

I declare January1May the winner.

He'd have gotten my vote!