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Impulse buy...from 25 years ago

WeissWeiss Posts: 9,934 ✭✭✭✭✭
Right about the time I decided there were more important things to spend money on (like girls, video games, cars, etc), I sold off most of my good coins. As I was putting my numismania in mothballs, I spied a piece in my B&M's trays that struck me.

I don't know why. Something about the incredibly high relief and the spare obverse appealed to me. At the time, I had no idea that Mithradates II was a ruler from the same region as one of my very earliest purchased coins--my Orodes II drachm.

Anyway, this piece went into the sock drawer in the original 2x2, and made it from apartment to apartment to house to house over ~25 years until today.

If the flip's attribution is to be believed, he's a:

Mitrhadates II, 123-88 BC AR Drachm
Seaby (Sear) #7368
3.7 grams

The flip says I paid $45 for him, though that is probably higher than I actually paid. The images highlight the porosity, which is not nearly as evident in hand. What do you think?

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We are like children who look at print and see a serpent in the last letter but one, and a sword in the last.
--Severian the Lame

Comments

  • ZoharZohar Posts: 6,629 ✭✭✭✭✭
    Weiss - I like these write ups and the coin you posted. I did not keep any of the original pieces I collected as a kid as I sold my entire collection (primarily US) to get into world coinage.e
  • nicholasz219nicholasz219 Posts: 1,386 ✭✭✭
    Men with hats!

    I am still searching for a Parthian coin for my collection. I wish I would have grabbed one when I was younger like you did. Nice piece. I don't think the porosity is that bad given that a lot of my coins tend to look more terrible in photos than in hand.
  • lordmarcovanlordmarcovan Posts: 43,194 ✭✭✭✭✭
    Aside from the porosity, I like everything else about that coin.

    So many of these devolved into cartoonish portraits later. The portrait here is handsome, and the aforementioned high relief makes it stand out nicely.

    I have but two pieces remaining from my childhood and teen years collection, and both are US coins.

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  • WeissWeiss Posts: 9,934 ✭✭✭✭✭
    It's hard to explain the appeal. It's spare. Like really, really spare.

    I get kind of an auditory response from coins. Not like voices in my head or anything--more just a sensation.

    This coin is quiet.
    We are like children who look at print and see a serpent in the last letter but one, and a sword in the last.
    --Severian the Lame
  • lordmarcovanlordmarcovan Posts: 43,194 ✭✭✭✭✭
    I can sort of get where you're comin' from with that.

    It's like a coin's aura, man. Wow. Like, groovy.

    I feel it (if not hear it), too.

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  • SwampboySwampboy Posts: 12,874 ✭✭✭✭✭
    Stunning portrait.

    I' ve been wondering. Why are the archers seated on Parthian and Sassanid coins?
    All I can think of is they might have been on city walls and could fire with greater frequency from a seated position.
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