Faux Gift Certif For A Current Ancients/Medieval Auction!

Okay, for my part I am going to put down $400 in make-believe money on lot 236 in the current VAuctions, below:



Parthian silver fractions never used to be on my numismatic radar, but lately I've been warming to them. Fewer than half of Parthia's kings issued them, and then only sporadically and at a limited number of mints. These mysterious little coins are thus all rare.

This particular lot is an AR hemidrachm attributed to Mithradates II. It is listed as a variant of Sellwood type 28 drachms - with "variant" based on the denomination and the different number of reverse legend lines. The legend on this specimen is illegible - or nearly so.

If the attribution is accurate - Mithradates II - then this is the first Parthian silver fraction in which the ruler wears the famous Parthian tiara - the type of tiara seen from this point forward on many later Parthian coins, as well as on some of the coins of Persis, Elymais, and Indo-Parthian kingdoms. It is thus a very special coin with a seminal presentation of the tiara - indeed a wonderful find and absolutely unique.

That $400 bid would leave me $100 which - even though this would be a doomed bid - I'll place on a copy of Michael Mitchiner's "Oriental Coins and Their Values - The Ancient and Classical World" (ACW). This is lot 712 over at CNG. The current high bid is $60, so my $100 bid will put me in the lead! Yay! Realistically we can expect this lot to go much, much higher before the dust settles...but in any event:

This is an important, long out-of-print book for collectors of Eastern series (e.g. Parthia, Persis, Kushan Empire, etc.), and it doesn't come on the market all that often. Not too long ago I posted about coming across an illustration (in a borrowed copy of ACW) of one of the coins from my collection. I would love to own this book! I hope I pretend-win!

@bobl, neat idea for a thread and yes your absence has been noted as the rest of us try to pick up the slack identifying obscure ancient coins from dark and blurry pics.

Well, with my hypothetical $500, I'm going for Celtic gold! Specifically, here is a coin in the Pegasi auction that I wouldn't mind having for $500. Including the 18% buyer's premium, I only have about $20 of ceiling above the minimum bid. It may be interesting to follow up with whether any of us actually could have won the bid with $500 or whether our eyes were bigger than our wallets.

Interesting selections. Beautiful Byzantine gold, Matt...easy to see why you would be attracted to it.
Spence, you surprised me by going for Celtic gold. Neat.

I see Ron also has Mitchiner in his sights. I hope I don't get fake-outbid! I'll be watching the high bids with fake-nervousness.

Well, there isn't actually that much in the bunch that seriously interests me...

Mind you, if my usual coin shop visits are any indication, I'm still going to come back with a few cents left over
(I tried to come up to exactly $500, which meant that the non-fixed prices ended up with extra 1-cent additions that should symbolize how I would've been willing to go a bit higher but ran out of pretend-money.)

Let's see. I'll probably go up to $50-60 on the Early Europeans, AKA a bunch of unattributed medievals, Frank Robinson's lot 485 (minimum $20). Let's call it $27.51 for the moment, as a pretend bid (there's no estimate on the item, but I really want it - perhaps more so than any of the others).
Might as well put in a "why not" bid at $130.01 for the Galla Placidia (lot 394, minimum $125) and $24.01 for the Eudoxia (lot 392, minimum $20). That takes me up to $181.53.

(BTW, I love Frank Robinson's humor. "Sacrificial doohickeys"? Color TV in the 1880s?)

Also definitely going to put some in at Agora lot 043 (Kyzikos obol, 600-550 BC) and Agora lot 062 (Lydian siglos, 545-520 BC) - the latter because it's Lydian, the former because it's pretty much as old as non-electrum coins get.
Let's say $110.01 for the Lydian (current max $105) and $90 opening for the Kyzikos (which I'm not that serious about). Realistically I'd have bid much more, but I'm running out of the certificate by that point...
That brings me to $381.54 so far.

...did my eyes deceive me or is that a Tabaristan drachm for $33.95? (Frank Robinson's lot 524.) Definitely a worthy coin to buy.
That's up to $414.49 (the Tabaristan is a fixed price), which leaves $85.51 to go.

I'll take a Parion 3/4 drachm ($21.50, lot 521) and a cheap Slavonia denar ($3.99, lot 531); that's a total of $25.49, and leaves $59.02.

At this point I'll do two more long-shot "why not" bids - $46.01 on the Teos trihemiobol (lot 148, minimum $45) and $13.01 on the Augustus/Gnaeus Piso as (lot 194, minimum $12).


...On second thought, I'm not sure about the Kyzikos obol, and I want a chance on some actual electrum as well.
So instead I might take long-shot bids of $33.02 on the Miletos 1/12 stater (lot 77, minimum $30) and $44.02 on the Lesbos 1/24 stater (lot 66, minimum $40), get a 15th century Vietnamese cash for $5.95 (lot 581) and a punchmarked karshapana for $6.95 (lot 525), and spread the remaining 6 cents on adding second $.01 increments to bids already incremented by $.01 (there are exactly six of them).


...Actually, come to think of it - I don't like auctions. I tend to lose in them.
So my best option is probably to take advantage of Frank's fixed price specials as much as I can.

(Some of those are coins I wouldn't mind actually buying in reality with real money. Especially that $21.50 Parion...
...if only I could afford the shipping. Which I can't, unfortunately.)

That means:
- Elymais AE drachm, $15.95 (minimal lot of 3 pcs)
- Parion 3/4 drachm, $21.50
- Bactria AR drachm, $19.75
- Tabaristan hemidrachm, $33.95
- India punchmarked - I'll take two: 2x$6.95=$13.90
- Abbasid dirhem, $14.50
- Gadhaiya Paisa, $9.95
- Slavonia denar, $3.99
- Vietnamese cash, $5.95

...This only comes out to $139.44, and I still have pretend $360.56 to spend on auctions.
Which I, in this version, don't really want to enter. But some of Frank's are reasonably nice?

Let's bump the medieval coin lot (Frank 485) up to $66.50 (might actually pretend-win that one), the Lesbos 1/24 stater (Frank 66) up to $90.01, and give minimal bids (plus one cent) on the Miletos 1/12 stater (Frank 77, $30), the other Miletos 1/12 stater (Frank 78, $30), the Galla Placidia (Frank 394, $125), the Gnaeus Piso as (Frank 194, $12), and, why not, the 8 nummi of Justinian I (Frank 398, $7).


[I'll try to add screenshots of the mentioned lots later. Some of them don't even have a picture...]

Good choices, all. Thanks for sharing your selections and reasoning. J1M sure put a lot of thought into this! I mean, wow...that was kind of a neat stream of consciousness.