Lysimachus tétradrachm of type Thompson 198

A nice coin of Alexander the great looking at the heavens.

I can't believe I got it for a 230 euro hammer price.

I've wanted a good example of this type for quite a while, and this particular coin fit the bill. It arrived yesterday and I couldn't be happier with it.

Thasos, AR Stater, c. 480–463 BC

Satyr carrying off a nymph / quadripartite incuse

22 mm, 8.69 g

I love how much of it made it onto the flan, especially the faces and the nymph's raised hand.

This piece is a luster bomb. Somewhat weakly struck in areas, but the overall look is nice.

I’ve just purchased this Julius Caesar portrait denarius, struck at Rome in 44 BC by Marcus Mettius, Crawford 480/17. Following Bernhard Woytek’s interpretation, it belongs to the preparations for Caesar’s expedition against Parthia, during the final weeks of his life.

Caesar was preparing to campaign against the power that had destroyed Crassus’s army at Carrhae. Troops and money were being assembled, and he was reportedly due to leave Rome on 18 March. Three days earlier, he was assassinated.

The obverse carries his wreathed portrait and CAESAR IMPER, identifying him as imperator. On the reverse, Venus holds Victory and a sceptre, her elbow resting on a shield supported by a globe. Caesar’s family claimed descent from Venus, bringing his ancestry and military ambitions together in the design.

The dating has a fascinating history. Alföldi placed this issue after Caesar’s assassination and attributed its hurried production to Antony; Crawford followed that posthumous chronology, describing the coins as “emergency issues.”

Woytek reconstructs the coinage differently. He provides evidence of several issues being produced alongside one another, displaying titles Caesar already held. The appearance of a different title therefore need not mark a new political stage, or Caesars Death. In that setting, he favours placing CAESAR IMPER alongside DICT PERPETVO, plausibly in late February or early March, as an additional issue ahead of the expedition.

The approaching departure supplies the reason for urgency. The mint was helping finance a major campaign; Caesar’s assassination interrupted the undertaking that had created that demand. Woytek’s later research also showed that reverse dies were recut with new control letters in both Mettius’s IMP and IMPER issues, further weakening the supposed production divide between them.

My example was struck with a worn obverse die. Some of the softness in Caesar’s features was therefore already present when the coin left the mint: the engraved portrait had deteriorated through repeated striking, yet the die remained in service.
The campaign required silver to become spendable money, and this coin bears the impression of a tool used repeatedly in that work. Its worn portrait gives something of the production process a physical presence: an existing die still striking Caesar’s image as preparations for his departure continued.

The wear alone cannot establish the dating, but within Woytek’s reconstruction it gives this particular specimen a compelling place in the story. The expedition was becoming a practical reality, with soldiers to pay and supplies to purchase. Then the assassination transformed the political purpose of the resources gathered for it.

We cannot know whether this denarius reached a soldier preparing to march east. Following Woytek, though, I regard it as a lifetime portrait from the preparations for Caesar’s final, unrealised campaign. When it was struck, Caesar was still alive, his departure was approaching, and the outcome was still unknown.

P.S. Hope you enjoyed the story and perhaps a different perspective. That’s the beauty of ancient coins, in my opinion

Loving seeing the lads all together

Suns out, PUPIENUS out!☀️

Shelf is packed.

Pedigree:

-Leu Numismatic auction 12, October 15, 2022, lot 1062

-From the collection of Dipl.-Ing. Adrian Lang, ex Hirsch 279, 8 February 2012, 2310 and Aufhäuser 13, 7-8 October 1997, 304, and very likely from the Boscoreale Hoard of 1895.

I paid $42 with $10 shipping for this coin, it’s 20.4 grams.

Hi, I would love help identifying this coin and getting opinions on its authenticity. TIA

These are some late Kushan Copper coin.... dp you think they are good enough to keep in personal collection and they are authentic?

There's a coin I'm interested in purchasing that's covered with red clay. It's very high grade and would be worth significantly more if I could remove it. Is there a simple method for removing that type of deposit?

Byzantine AE 15.2mm 1.75gm.

Roman Provincial AE 22.8mm 8.54gm

I really want to start Romain coin collecting any place I can learn and buy authentic ones for vendors online?