Ancient Coins

A perspective from coinweek on ancient coin collection, specifically I suppose on choosing a collection focus.

My own collecting is not focused per se, I collect what I find cool. Still, over the years some themes have emmerged:

• I like coins of Philip I the Arab because they are affordable in good grade and have many cool reverses
• I like small greek coins because they often feature interesting gods and other themes and the variety is so great
• I like coins from Rhodes as they feature a rose and generally look nice

Miletos was a Greek city in the area that was called Ionia in antiquity, and which is today part of Turkey. The ruins can be visited near the village of Balat, which lies approximately halfway between the holiday islands of Samos and Rhodes.

Like so many other cities in the area, Miletos was founded in prehistoric times, when the Greek tribe called the Ionians colonized the area around 1000 BC. The period from around 1100 BC to 800 BC is often called "The Greek Dark Ages" - and it was indeed a dark time following the total collapse of the Mycenaean civilization.

But after darkness comes light, and from 800 BC and henceforth the Greek cities of Anatolia were very successful in at least one thing; they had children and the children survived. It is believed that the population increased by a minimum of 4% each year.

Let's go somewhere nice...

All those people needed a place to live, and for the Greeks the solution was clear; colonization. From the 8th to the 6th century BC the Greek peoples - the Ionians, Dorians, Achaeans & Aeolians - founded thousands of cities around the Mediterranean (Fig. 1).

!GreekColonies

More city-states means more trade, and with more trade comes prosperity. And with prosperity comes the energy and time for other pursuits than toiling for your daily bread.

The birth Thales - and philosophy

And so, in Miletos around 624 BC, Thales was born - a man who can without exaggeration be called one of the most important people who ever lived.

You see, Thales had a theory:

Everything - EVERYTHING - is made of water!

The earth obviously floats on water, and earthquakes are when the earth is moved by waves. Blood is water, and without blood you die, trees are water, because they grow when they are watered. If you burn off gas, it turns into water, and fog condenses into water. Metal is also a type of water, because when it is heated it melts, and water can clearly condense into earth - you could see this in real time when you looked at the river Meander and how the water over the years condensed and created new earth.

To our modern minds, it seems absurd, of course.

But you need to understand that Thales is the first (at least in the Western tradition) to even consider explaining nature without referring to gods and mythology. Who tried to explain nature with nature, so to speak. And he attempted to do this without having a single scientific or philosophical concept at his disposal.

What an intellectual effort

In that sense, he is the first philosopher - and the first scientist. And by the way, he is also considered to be the first Greek mathematician.

The Coin

The coin here is a small 9mm silver coin from Miletos, a diobol, with a roaring lion on the front and a sort of star pattern on the back. It weighs only 1.16 grams.

Obverse: Forepart of lion left, head to right

Reverse: Stellate pattern within incuse square

It was struck somewhere between the end of the 6th and the beginning of the 5th century BC. - that is, while Thales was alive.

SNG Kayhan 462-75

Currently on holiday with the family in France, came across a coin shop and went in to ask if they had ancient coins (not many do). To my delight they did, although in a fairly middle quality.

Still, it was priced fairly and to reward the guy for pulling out the stuff for me I bought this Philip I antoninianus with a victory reverse for 30 euro.

No story today :) Just the coin:

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Obverse: Radiate head of Helios facing slightly right

Reverse: APTEMΩN / P-O, rose with bud to right, hook to left; all within incuse square.

Struck 170-150 BC in Rhodes. Struck to the so-called Plinthophoric standard, under the magistrate Artemon.

13.1mm, 1.16g.

Jenkins 50; SNG Helsinki 658. VF

If you're not an experienced collector of ancient coins - or not yet a collector at all - finding and buying coins can be a fairly daunting task.

As a new collector you should:

• Avoid Ebay until you're more experienced. It is full of fakes, and positive feedback is meaningless. While you can find good deals there, you won't know them unless you have lots of experience.
• Use only trusted sellers such as those on vcoins or MA-shops . Vcoins is generally more used in the US, MA-shops is often used in Europe - but many sellers are present on both platforms. They typically all offer a lifetime 100% money back guarantee if a coins is found to be fake after they've sold it to you.

Here are some good deals from vcoins to get you started:

Under $30

• This Licinius I follis has a pleasing obverse and reverse and a fair price point.
• This Sasanian drachm of Khusro II is a nice large silver coin of one of the most famous Sasanian kings.
• This Constantine I follis features the popular camp gate reverse.
• This Kyzikos silver hemiobol has a nice stylized lion reverse and is really old, only maybe 150-200 years after the invention of coinage.

$30-50

• This silver diobol from Miletos features a lion mostly on-flan and a really pretty incuse reverse pattern. Also very old :D
• A nice portrait of Aurelian, one of the most overlooked emperors.
• Speaking of portraits, this Gordian III has a nice quality to it.
• A passable Hadrian denarius
• A provincial Augustus from Syria

$50-100

• An evocative portrait of Trajan
• A heavy syrian silver tetradrachm of Trajan Decius
• A lovely Maximinus Thrax
• A decent Philip I antoninianus with an Annona reverse
• A chunky Marcus Aurelius sestertius to hold while you read the Medidations perhaps.

In general, it is important to do a bit of research before making your first purchase, mainly by comparing coins at the same price point and decising which coin looks better to you. Condition is typically more important than rarity, but there's no formal system to classify what looks good to you. In the end, beauty is in the eye of the beholder and you set your own goals :)

In antiquity, the Greek world extended far beyond what we think of today as Greece. Most of Anatolia, which is Turkey today, was Greek, for example - just as large parts of the western Mediterranean were colonized by industrious Greeks, with Sicily at the center stage.

And in north-western Anatolia, in what was called Troas (after Troy), once lay a city called Birytis. And.. that's more or less all we know about Birytis. We don't know exactly where is was, it's not mentioned in any written sources. We only know it from coins, and the evidence suggests that it appears to have existed from acround 350-250 BC.

Monotonous Motifs

Virtually all coins from Birytis depic the same thing. On the obverse a male bust, with or without a beard, wearing a silly triangular hat. On the reverse a club surrounded by a laurel wreath and the letters BI PY for Birytis.

The man with the hat is (a) Kabeiros - a kind of nature god who was worshiped in secret orgiastic dancing and drinking lodges, and who was alledgedly the son of the blacksmith god Hephaistos. But no one knows for sure, because the rituals were secret - and no account of them survives.

What about the silly hat?

We know a lot about the hat, though. It is a pileus - a shadeless felt hat, which was mostly used as a kind of traveling hat, but as a symbol of FREEDOM! In the Greek world, this is the hat which was presented to freed slaves. After receiving the pileus, the former slave was free and could, as it were, wear their hat as they pleased.

This tradition was adopted by the Romans, and aftet the ides of March, Brutus struck a coin with a pileus and two daggers on it, to symbolize that with the murder of Julius Caesar they had struck a blow for freedom (and against tyranny). Unfortunately, I will never be able to afford that coin - in 2011 a nice copy was sold for USD 546,250, and prices have risen sharply since then.

** Pileus 2: Return of the Pileus**

In the 18th and 19th centuries, when the bourgoisie became enamoured with ideals about liberty, equality and fraternity, they found inspiration in ancient ideals and practices. Only, they confused the pileus with the Phrygian cap, the red hat which became popular during the French Revolution(s). But maybe you'd have had fewer recruits with the pileus, as it is quite silly indeed.

And who wants to look silly for the revolution?

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Obverse: Head of Kabeiros left, wearing conical helmet; two stars above.

Reverse: B I / P Y, Club within wreath.

18mm, 3.48g

SNG von Aulock 1502-3; SNG München 168

Diocletian, Roman emperor from 284-305, was born Diocles - a Greek name - in the year 244 in Dalmatia, now the Balkans. Like so many others from the minor nobility he became a soldier - and at the age of 40 he was general of the 'Proctores Domestici', the cavalry unit belonging to the emperor's household.

When the ruling emperor, Carus, was struck by lightning during a campaign against the Persians his two sons Carinus & Numerian inherited the throne. Numerian "mysteriously" died on his way to Rome, and it totally had nothing to do with Diocles being responsible for his safety at all. I swear, total coincidence. He didn't even want to be emperor. But, you know, when the army insists it'd be rude to refuse...

The Battle agains Carinus

Carinus was of course not happy, and he gathered an army and marched against Rome and Diocletian, as he now styled himself. The battle stood at Margus in Moesia (now Serbia), and initially it looked like Carinus' larger and more experienced force would make short work of Diocletian's army. But as they were preparing to flee the unexpected happned; Carinus was killed by one of his bodyguards, as revenge for Carinus seducing his wife.

After this, Diocletian was hailed as emperor by the army which had nearly defeated him.

The Tetrarchy

As emperor, Diocletian was a great reformer. He had (correctly) identified that it was impossible for one man to hold together the vast Roman Empire, which was now both threatened on all fronts and by internal discord.

His solution was not new; he divided power between 2 senior emperors, each with an adopted junior emperor under him. From 286-305 he thus ruled alongside Maximian 'Herculius', with Galerius and Constantius I 'Chlorus' as junior emperors.

And then he abdicated, retired, and moved into a villa in Dalmatia to grow cabbages, a villa which nowadays forms the center of the city of Split in Croatia. Maximian also retired, in Campania south of Rome.

His Final Years

Diocletian is the only emperor of the third and fourth centuries who died a natural death, and he is the only emperor at all who voluntarily abdicated. And that is perhaps the greatest proof of how great a ruler he really was. After 50 years of chaos and civil war under 27 emperors, Diocletian ruled for 21 years before abdicating.

Sadly, his system, the Tetrarchy, collapsed almost immediately. The Roman Empire was again thrown into civil war - and Diocles died sick, tired and broken on December 3rd 311.

The End of Realistic Portraiture on Coins

With Diocletian the era where coins reflect what an emperor looked like in reality is definitely over. Due to hyperinflation, portrait quality had steadily declined as early as under Gallienus, and coins under Carus, Carinus, Numerian and Diocletian have virtually identical portraits. Not even after Diocletian's coinage reform - where this follis is from - are there any attempts to make the emperors look distinct.

In fact, realistic portraits are now a thing of the past for the next thousand years, after which the Renaissance kings begin to look to the rulers of antiquity as models - and to imitate their coins.

The Coin

This coins is a follis, a large coin measuring 28mm and weighing 10 grams. The reverse features the spirit of the Roman people - Genius Populi Romani. It was struck in Heraclea, now the small town of Marmara Ereğlisi in Turkey, about 90km west of Istanbul.

Obverse: IMP C C VAL DIOCLETIAN P F AVG, Laureate bust right

Reverse: GENIO POPVLI ROMANI, Genius standing left, holding patera and cornucopia

RIC VI 19a

Ephesos was founded in the 10th century BC, in prehistoric Greek times, on the remains of the city of Apasa, which had served as the capital of the Arzawa Kingdom (Hipster Kingdom: Lasted for 800 years, you've never heard of it, inhabited Western Anatolia before it became cool).

Artemis Ephesia

Apasa had been the center of the worship of a Mother Goddess - Apasa may even mean 'Place of the Mother Goddess' - and this continued in Ephesus. But this time in the form of Artemis Ephesia - The Ephesian Artemis.

Those of you who know Artemis probably know her as the twin sister of the sun god Apollo, the slim, lithe and athletic virgin moon and hunter goddess whose attributes are the bow and arrow.

But Artemis Ephesia looks... completely different. She is actually - probably - identical to the mother goddess who was worshiped in Apasa before the Greeks came along. She's... a bee goddess! On her chest she has a cluster of bee eggs (or breasts) and her legs are bound together in a chrysalis.

In Ephesus also stood one of the seven wonders of the world - the Temple of Artemis - whose priestesses were called Melissae - 'bees', a word that recurs in both the Latin name for lemon balm and the other herbs in the Melissa genus (because they attract bees), and in the name of Melissa, of course.

Herostratic Fame

The Temple of Artemis was built in 550 BC. and was burned down in 356 BC. - on the same night that Alexander the Great was born - by a man named Herostratus.

If the name means something to you, dear reader, then it is only because of that. He burned down the Temple of Artemis to become famous - for good or for evil. An early example of "there's no such thing as bad press". The Ephesians executed him, of course, and were forbidden to mention his name under penalty of death. But the historian Theopompus wrote it all down, and Herostratus did become (in)famous. Although 'herostratic fame' is not exactly desirable.

The Coin

The coin here was struck sometime in the period 375-325 BC, so both Herostratus and the little Melissas - busy-bee priestesses - may have held it in their hands. It is 11mm and features Artemis on the front, and a bee on the back - and the letters E - Φ for Ephesus.

This antoninianus was struck under Philip I Arabs in Rome in 248 AD, and is part of a series of coins celebrating the 1000th anniversary of Rome.

A saeculum was typically 100 years, and was regarded as the longest possible lifespan for a human. So every 100 years they would have games called the Ludi Saeculares, and in AD 248 they coincided with the millennial celebration.

The coins struck to celebrate this occasion have a wide variety of cool reverses; wolves, stags, goats, hippos, lions, etc. They are cool and common.

A very small subset of them have the animals going in the opposite direction to the norm. Maybe they were test issues, maybe it's just a coincidense. This coin has the stag going left instead of right and is, imho, really really pretty.

Obverse: IMP PHILIPPVS AVG, radiate, draped & cuirassed bust right Reverse: SAECVLARES AVGG, stag walking left

RIC 20, 3.88g, struck in Officina V(5)

** Obverse:** IMP C C VIB TREB GALLVS P F AVG, Radiate, draped and cuirassed bust right two pellets below

Reverse: SAECVLLVM NOVVM, Roma seated facing on throne within hexastyle temple, holding sceptre

This coin was struck in AD 251-252 in Antioch, and is classified as Sear 9648.

I like this coin because it is basically a reissue of a coin struck only 4 years previously by Philip I Arabs celebrating the 1000th birthday of Rome. Saecullum Novum mean the new milennium. It must have been a real crowd pleaser, as the reverse was also used by Herennius Etruscus, Hostilian, and Volusian.

Just checking to see how all this works. As a fun treat, see what you can identify in the mini hoard :)

This is a post originally from reddit by /u/ghsgjgfngngf - excellent advice:

The question of how to spot a fake is asked all the time. There are checklists supposed to help new collectors but the whole concept is flawed. New collectors can't understand what the word actually mean. They can't distinguish between details that are 'less crisp' because of wear, because of a weak strike or a worn die, because of corrosion/brutal 'cleaning' or because the coin is a cast fake. It's the same with all other parameters that may be indicative of a fake.

To spot a fake, you need to know very well what a genuine coin of the type in question looks like. There is no shortcut. Even asking here is of limited value as this sub (compared to a dedicated ancient coin forum) has lots of people who don't know much about ancient coins, so posts asking for authenticity may very well get wrong answers only, it's not rare for a poster to receive very bad advice this way.

EBay feedback is absolutely useless for spotting a fake seller. This may sound like an exaggeration but it's not. All the professional fake sellers have perfect feedback. It also doesn't help to look at lists of fake sellers as they can change their names and new fake sellers crop up all the time. What you can do is buy from reputable dealers while you build your own knowledge. The latter takes time but is absolutely necessary.

For your edification, here is a list attempting to give pointers:

• A cast coin will often have little pits on the surface that were caused by bubbles from the cast.

• A cast coin may have a ridge around the edge from the mold. It may also have scratches on the edge that occur when the caster removes the ridge.

• A struck fake coin may be too round. This is due to a modern fabricator using a flan or blank that was created using modern methods, not ancient ones. Also the edges of a coin should not be sharp but rounded to some extent.

• Wrong metal. For example, if it’s bronze and should be silver. You can often see that the silver has been mixed with a base metal. This will give a silvery look, but not true silver. On the other hand, silver was often debased in ancient periods of hardship. This is very true of late antoninianus coins (commonly where the emperor is wearing a crown).

• Wrong weight or thickness. Check to see if the weight is close to other coins of that type. Many times fakes are about 20% lighter.

• The details of the image are too soft or weak. There is usually wear on the high points of a coin, but details protected from wear should be sharp. Where the image meets the flat field of the coin for instance.

• Many genuine coins have flow lines that radiate outwards from the image. These are OK. The flow lines can even be microscopic, but they do effect the luster of a coin.

• If the image is of poor quality, amateurish, or something just doesn’t look right, be wary of the authenticity. These can sometimes be ancient replicas (explained below).

• lf the deal looks too good to be true, it probably is. A shady dealer or if the price is simply too low should raise some flags.

• Look for a stamp on coin with the letters “WRL” or similar. These may be initials of the fabricator. Westair Reproductions Limited. Many ancient coins have bankers marks or test cuts. These are OK but vary in style. Check VCoins for examples.

Plus one: 11. It’s a little more advanced but check the patina or color. If a silver coin has been cleaned and is shiny or the fields have been darkened, that’s a bad sign. If a bronze coin has had it’s patina removed or is the wrong color, beware. Patina date usually green, brown or black.

Fourrée (ancient replicas) Sometimes the fake is ancient. The image may look like a very amateurish copy of a real coin. Or a bronze coin has been plated in silver (often used to pay barbarian mercenaries). Sometimes these silver coins will have areas that have just flaked away showing the patina of the bronze inside.

This community is created as an alternative to reddit, but with the spirit and values of the old Ancient Coins subreddit hopefully intact.

Please have fun, show off your coins, and be awesome to each other 🙂