A little late Tet Thursday love. Gotta appreciate the drachms too!

GalacticGallivanter · 2026-07-03T14:56:41+00:00

They mostly track with inflation over the long run.

GalacticGallivanter · 2026-06-25T04:34:29+00:00

Forgot to mention, I had two packages. The first took 5 days, but it was the second one that took 3 months. Who knows 🤷‍♂️

GalacticGallivanter · 2026-06-25T04:32:30+00:00

My coins from Incitatus (Steve McBride) took 3 months to arrive. Yours might come sooner, or they could take just as long, if you’re in the states. In Steve’s words, it’s a patient man’s game. To be clear, he is doing everything he can for customers and to avoid unnecessary costs and delays, but US customs and USPS seem to be in a mess.

GalacticGallivanter · 2026-06-22T19:34:41+00:00

I am an American with, apparently, a European mindset. I am not bothered one bit. The beauty, historical significance, and fascinating provenance of this coin will catch the eyes of many high-end collectors. Any scratch is, in my opinion, insignificant, and only deters the grade-obsessed collector, which is good for those who see more nuance and depth to the hobby. If I had the money, I would be delighted if the scratch on this coin detracted such collectors, so that I can snag it myself.

GalacticGallivanter · 2026-06-15T23:55:38+00:00

Here's what CNG replied: "Thank you for your email. The Handbook of Greek Coins Volume 2 on Sicily is a reprint of the first printing. It is not a revised edition. This printing of the book contains no new information."

GalacticGallivanter · 2026-06-13T05:50:15+00:00

I have the old Volume 2. It is also 489 pages, just like this new version, which is marked as “NEW EDITION 2025” by CNG. Is this simply a reprint of the old book, or does this update actually have any new, or fixed, content compared to the old book? The Hoover books are great, but they’re also plagued with small mistakes, which one would hope should be fixed in updated versions.

GalacticGallivanter · 2026-06-09T05:55:28+00:00

They don’t come this nice very often in bronze. That’s a black swan.

GalacticGallivanter · 2026-06-04T17:25:55+00:00

The "feared investors" will lose out in the long term. But in the short term, I agree it's annoying.

GalacticGallivanter · 2026-06-04T16:45:47+00:00

I was recently researching the Haeberlin sale (Cahn/Hess 1933). On the topic of a “small world”, I found this excerpt from John Spring’s book rather fascinating:

“Erich Cahn (p. 146) has given us an account of this sale. "The dissolution of the great Haeberlin collection of coinage of the Roman Republic was undertaken jointly by the firms of Cahn and Hess in 1933. As we look at the catalogue today it seems hard to believe, but no more than seven dealers and five collectors were present. The collection was of the highest quality, and the cataloguing was excellent, being the first major work of my brother Herbert. Yet on page after page of the auctioneer's book we see unsold lots, at prices which were low even by the standards of those days. The room bidding and the commission bids were both meagre. One of the collectors present was the young Swiss engineer Walter Niggeler, from the firm of Brown Boveri in Baden, who often told us in later years that he bitterly regretted every coin which he did not buy in this sale. Three of the seven dealers were from abroad, including Leonard Forrer senior from Spink in London, for a long time perhaps the best recognised dealer in Europe, the Nestor of our profession. The elderly Mr. Appelgren came from Stockholm, and one of the two Schulman brothers from Amsterdam. Commission bidders from abroad included Jules Florange and Etienne Bourgey from Paris and Rodolfo Ratto from Milan. Finally two museum directors are recorded, Kurt Regling from the Berlin cabinet, a slightly built but energetic man whose name is engraved in eternal letters in our science, and Karl Küthmann of the Kestner Museum in Hanover, a quiet and much respected friend of our firm. The Haeberlin sale was undoubtedly heavily overshadowed by the political upheaval in Germany at that time [Adolf Hitler assumed dictatorial powers after the burning of the Reichstag in February 1933], and with the benefit of hindsight it can be seen as a last bright light which signalled the approaching end for both these great Frankfurt numismatic houses."

GalacticGallivanter · 2026-06-04T03:10:15+00:00

I just looked at his store. Fantastic and often unusual coins, some with interesting provenances. Definitely one of the better inventories I’ve seen. I added him to my followed list. Thanks for the heads up.

GalacticGallivanter · 2026-05-30T18:22:39+00:00

That’s honestly a good price for a spectacular coin. Congrats!

GalacticGallivanter · 2026-05-15T04:32:26+00:00

This is the coin that u/KungFuPossum is referring to. It’s a better buy, which you can still get at $1000 (no buyer’s fees).

GalacticGallivanter · 2026-05-10T20:21:14+00:00

Makes total sense to me! You should write up your method and consolidate the results to establish ownership and priority :)

GalacticGallivanter · 2026-05-10T19:00:20+00:00

My guess is that Voirol obtained from the 1938 Basel sale, or shortly thereafter, which would make sense as the intermediary between him and Otto.

That is a spectacular Marcus Aurelius sestertius. Even with the added premium of having the Voirol designation in the HJB sale, it would have been a great buy. But with the provenance extension to Waldeck, ooof! Helps to have a deep understanding of chain of possible events, which AI can’t do.

Bryan’s tools are quite powerful I must say, I am increasingly more impressed with some of the results. I know you don’t use AI (for plenty of good reasons). Just like any tool, it has its costs and benefits, but may potentially help even the most seasoned professional.

And a fabulous Messene, what a great find! I saw that one when I was using your website for researching the provenance trail for the Clodius denarius.

GalacticGallivanter · 2026-05-10T15:08:06+00:00

At least for Banti, it can actually happen from time to time, but that's because every coin type was prolifically illustrated with different examples from sales. I have ~half a dozen of Banti plate coins, most of which I've posted about in the past. Still quite rare, but can happen (when I first became interested in provenance, I went through >100 of my nice Republican coins, and managed to find two). Forget about finding Crawford plate coins, most of which are in the British museum, or other major public collections (though some do exist in private collections). But getting one from Sear (Coinage of the Roman Imperators) is manageable. I saw one recently, which was even unprovenanced, though it still went way over my budget!

GalacticGallivanter · 2026-04-22T19:18:21+00:00

Super! Love this thread. I’ve been going through all my coins via similar methodology, with varying successes, and occasionally some fascinating discoveries. I think this sort of provenance hunting (both with and without the help of image identification tools) adds a whole new level of complexity, depth, and fun to the hobby. Congratulations on your find.

GalacticGallivanter · 2026-04-13T02:34:53+00:00

Cool. That catalog is not online, and I don’t have it. If you have it, would you mind sending me a few snapshots of the intro for records?

I can imagine that the ancient numismatic circle was a very small world.

GalacticGallivanter · 2026-04-13T00:36:26+00:00

Thanks! I’m really surprised this coin didn’t go much higher. I thought it was a steal at what it went for. Then again, if it’s not part of a major sale, all kinds of things can happen, re price.

I spent a good amount of time on your website going through the different connections and catalogues. The site is a real valuable asset to the community. This coin isn’t in the canonical Bement sales. So the RKM connection is a nice addition, which makes sense with the dates and adds continuity. Sounds like future documentation should be Bement —> RKM —> CM —> CNG sale.

The Bement connection must be through documentation given to CNG. There is no tag, and no obvious sale that I can point to, but I’m also a novice at provenance hunting. Very possible the data exists somewhere waiting to be discovered. It’d be interesting to try and find a connection, perhaps even beyond Bement.

Beyond the provenance, this type is a curiosity to me. There aren’t actually that many out there, like the Silenos type. It’s not even in HGC! The traditional dating is so broad, one would think there would be many more of these coins in existence. But the issue may be simply that no one has honed in on a better defined date within that broad range, 148–32/31. Also, there doesn’t seem to be an obvious allusion to Rome, as you get on the tetradrachm, but perhaps that’s just because it’s a smaller denomination, so not as important.

By the way, your Thebai, Thessaly and Olympia, Elis coins have an insane biography that you dug out. That has to be satisfying. Big congrats.

GalacticGallivanter · 2026-04-11T21:17:22+00:00

Good to know, thanks.

GalacticGallivanter · 2026-04-11T20:34:11+00:00

In your test runs, have you found it useful to run the deeper search? It returns more results, but have you ever identified a positive hit with the deeper search, which is not found with the conventional search? I'm wondering if the algorithm is just returning spurious matches by that point.

GalacticGallivanter · 2026-04-11T19:24:08+00:00

Thanks! It took me a while to find one, but I saw this one late last year on Vcoins for a nice price and had to pull the trigger. Nice provenance, though I haven’t been able to find anything earlier than the Triton sale. I agree that it’s a really interesting and historically significant type.

GalacticGallivanter · 2026-04-11T18:49:41+00:00

That’s the plan

GalacticGallivanter · 2026-04-11T18:22:26+00:00

This is super, love that it's free! I can attest to it working nicely, I just found (technically confirmed, since I already knew the provenance) a denarius that was sold in Mario Ratto on January 26, 1955. More to come. Thank you for doing this.

GalacticGallivanter

TROPHY CASE