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Collector's hoard of nearly 200 rare Roman and Greek coins dating back 2,500 years is found in the b
KollectorKing
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Collector's hoard of nearly 200 rare Roman and Greek coins dating back 2,500 years is found in the back of dusty drawer at Scotney Castle
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If they look in the back of a dusty drawer in my house they might find a corroded wheat cent.
This group does seem to be "one of each emperor" and "one of each member of the imperial family" type of grouping. In other words, a learning tool for a relatively high-class nineteenth century student.
It's a neat article, but the writers probably abuse the sh*t out of the word "rare". Desirable yes, rare probably not. Maybe you'll find a nice Pertinax or a nice Geta.
I despise spellchecker.
Thanks for the link.
https://www.derekscoppers.com/
Nice story !!!
The large coin, just at 11:00 of the center with the fat dude facing Right isn't common. It's a Roman orichalcum (light bronze alloy) sestersius of Vitellius which is rare in all grades. The photo is blurry but it doesn't appear to have substantial tooling nor corrosion & has quite some detail on the bust.
My guess is that in this grade one of these is "rare" and should be around $20,000 at auction today??? I've been looking for one off and on over the years and they're quite difficult to find this nice. Not comparable to a sestersius of Nero nor a common mint state follis of Diocletian.
Thus while some appear to be common not all are. What's interesting is the composition of the find: nearly all bronzes. I guess all the high end silver denarii & antoninianii hoards hadn't shown up when these guys were collecting?
Amazing how many ancient hoards are still found regularly... even if this particular one wasn't buried like most of them.
I think they were all bronze or brass as it was likely a "teaching" collection meant to contain one portrait of each Emperor, if possible. If there is a Vitellius, perhaps there is an Otho or a Pertinax - the large group photos in the article are not the easiest to decipher individually. I quickly looked at the portrait of the coin you pointed out and thought to myself 'Vespasian'.
By the late 19th century, there were all kinds of nice Roman silver and gold coins in Britain - there is a nice set of Roman gold coins (mostly imperial portraits) all formerly the property of King George III, that is on display in the former King's Library Room in the British museum. There were plenty of better silver and gold coins in England by the eighteenth century, so the fact that this nineteenth century accumulation was mostly bronze or brass probably means somebody had gathered thus group with a mind towards economy.