By Steve Benner for CoinWeek ….. Pamphylia was not a country unto itself but a region. It is located on the southern coast of Asia Minor (Modern Turkey) surrounded by Lycia to the west, Cilicia to the east, and Pisidia to the north. In ancient Greek, Pamphylia meant “of mingled tribes or races”, and […]
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By Steve Benner for CoinWeek ….. Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4 * * * This article is the second part on the coinage of Troas, a region of northwest Asia Minor adjacent to the Hellespont. Its history goes back to the Bronze Age and the Hittites, and Troy (Ilium), […]
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By Steve Benner for CoinWeek ….. Troas, unlike the subject of my previous article, was not a country unto itself. It was only the name of a district in northwest Asia Minor (Anatolia) adjacent to the Hellespont (Dardanelles). The area is bordered by the Aegean Sea to the west, the mountain massif that forms Mount […]
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By Tyler Rossi for CoinWeek ….. Mithridates VI Eupator (b.120 – d.63 BCE) was born into Pontic royalty under an auspicious sign. Justinus relays, in his recounting of Pompeius Trogus’s Historiae Philippicae, the story of how two comets lit the night sky for 70 consecutive days. This event was memorialized in a series of […]
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By Tyler Rossi for CoinWeek ….. One of the most basic tasks of a numismatist is the identification of coins. While correctly attributing the denomination, issuing authority, and date are important, determining the mint at which a coin was struck can reveal lots of contextual information. Outside of private issues and small city-states that operate […]
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By Steve Benner for CoinWeek ….. This is the last article in a series on the Greek colonies on the northern coast of the Black Sea (Euxine Sea). The first article was on Olbia; the second was on Tyras and Chersonesus; the third covers the cities of Theodosia, Gorgippia, and Phanagoria in the Cimmerian Bosporos. […]
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By Steve Benner for CoinWeek ….. This is the third article in a series on the Greek colonies on the northern coast of the Black Sea (Euxine Sea). The first article was on Olbia, the second was on Tyras and Chersonesus, and this one covers the cities of Theodosia, Gorgippia, and Phanagoria in the Cimmerian […]
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By Michael T. Shutterly for CoinWeek ….. The first coins to be struck appeared c. 650 BCE in what is now western Turkey. These coins were little more than blobs of electrum; what made these blobs “coins” rather than “bullion” is that they were cast to fit precisely within a measured system of weights and […]
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By Mike Markowitz for CoinWeek ….. EPIRUS IS A rugged corner of northwestern Greece and southern Albania. It emerged as an independent kingdom in the fourth century BCE, a time when other contemporary Greeks regarded the region’s tribes as “semi-barbarian”. About 319 BCE a prince of Epirus was born, named Pyrrhus, whose father was a […]
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CoinWeek Ancient Coin Series by Mike Markowitz for CoinWeek ….. “This is a very rare coin; only two examples known! Unfortunately, the only guy in the world who cares has the other one.” — Classic Numismatic Joke (source unknown) “Unique” means one of a kind. The ultimate rarity. The rarest anything can be. This designation, […]
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Ancient Gold Coins By Russell A. Augustin, AU Capital Management, LLC …… From the The Colosseo Collection The First Circulating Coinage Little is known about this mysterious archaic electrum coinage – the first ancient gold coins. It was minted in Ionia, somewhere in central Western Anatolia on the shores of the Aegean sea, but scholars […]
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Ancient Coins issued from colonies bordering the Strait of Messina are numerous and interesting Strait of Messina Coins By Numismatic Guaranty Corporation (NGC) …… The Strait of Messina, which separates Italy and Sicily and is just two miles wide at its narrowest point, has been the scene of many historic events. Countless armies have crossed […]
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CoinWeek Ancient Coin Series by Mike Markowitz ….. From the dawn of human society, the nature and origin of the bee have awakened the curiosity and interest of man. For thousands of years, honey was the only sweetening material known, and it is quite natural that in ancient times, the little busy creature who produced this […]
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CoinWeek Ancient Coin Series by Mike Markowitz …. And if any man will sue thee at law and take away thy coat [Greek: chiton; Latin: tunica], let him have thy cloak [Greek: himation; Latin: pallium] also. —Matthew, 5:40[1] LIVING IN A WORLD OF CHEAP, machine-made textiles, it is easy for us to forget that every […]
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Silver tetradrachms of Sicily are highly sought after by ancient-coin collectors Collectors have long agreed that many of the most impressive ancient coins were produced in Sicily. With its advantageous location between Italy and North Africa, this island was a cultural crossroads of the Mediterranean. It also was the site of frequent warfare among those […]
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Our upcoming Long Beach Auction of World and Ancient Coins features one of two known gold staters from Magnesia. This is a completely unrecorded denomination and type for this city, and of immense numismatic importance! Struck from a somewhat rusty obverse die and displaying corresponding granularity, otherwise a highly attractive type from dies of fine […]
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CoinWeek Ancient Coin Series by Mike Markowitz …. You ain’t nothing but a hound dog, crying all the time. You ain’t nothing but a hound dog, crying all the time. You ain’t never caught a rabbit, and you ain’t no friend of mine. –Elvis Presley, 20th-century American philosopher, covering Big Mama Thornton’s “Hound Dog” […]
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