Roman Egypt Bronzes - Not all are scrappy!

[BeastCoins]

Folks,

Although a lot of Roman Egypt bronzes have some surface porosity, sometimes you run across one that really knocks your socks off.

http://www.vcoins.com/ancient/beastcoins/store/catalog/C0217LG.jpg

Gallienus, AE Tetradrachm, 267/268 (Year 15), Egypt-Alexandria
AUT K P LIK GALLIHNOC CEB
Laureate, cuirassed bust right
(No legend)
Horus (Harpokrates) standing facing, crowned head right with hemhem crown, nude but for chlamys over left shoulder, branch downward in right hand, pomegranate raised in left, small figure of nude pygmy standing facing at left, transverse palm in right field
L I | E across fields
21mm x 22mm, 10.18g
Emmett 3818; Milne 4173; Curtis 1606
Ex Keith Emmett Collection

Grade: Sharp aEF to EF. A truly spectacular coin.

This is easily the nicest specimen from Roman Egypt I've ever handled. I hated to see it go instead of to my collection!

Enjoy,

--Zach Beasley

[Aeratvs]

Thanks Beast! A real beauty!!

Best,

William Peters

[BeastCoins]

Keith has a lot of really beautiful late Roman Egypt pieces. It's cool seeing these in hand as so many potin/ae/billon tets I've seen have seen better days. Nice, natural surfaces, no tooling or smoothing, many with 10-30 year old provenances (or more, in the cases of the Curtis plate coins, ex Duke of Argyll Collection, etc.). I can see why folks get so excited when old collections come to market - many look so esthetically different from the fresh material available.

By the way, as I do with anyone who consigns their collection to me, I'm adding all of the material to a page where folks will always be able to go back and look at the whole collection:

http://www.beastcoins.com/Collections/KeithEmmettEgypt/KeithEmmettRomanEgypt.htm

The coins are coming in small groups of 20-40 pieces at a time, so it will take many months before the entire collection has been offered.

--Zach Beasley

[BeastCoins]

I had originally meant to show the wonderful portraiture on Gallienus to go along with the start of this topic, but see I didn't do it! These portraits are just fantastic minature pieces of art.

The large eye on this one reminds me of the Ptolemaic octodrachms.

http://www.vcoins.com/ancient/beastcoins/store/catalog/C0243.jpg

Gallienus, AE Tetradrachm, 261/262 (Year 9), Egypt-Alexandria
AUT K P LIK GALLIHNOC CEB
Laureate, cuirassed bust right
ENATOY
Eagle standing left, wreath in beak, palm over right wing
L in right field
21mm x 22mm, 10.85g
Emmett 3802; Milne 4070-1; Curtis 1582-3; BMC 2235; Dattari 5286
Ex Keith Emmett Collection; Ex Colosseum Coin Exchange, November 1984

http://www.vcoins.com/ancient/beastcoins/store/catalog/C0208.jpg

Gallienus, Billon Tetradrachm, 263/264 (Year 11), Egypt-Alexandria
AUT K P LIK GALLIHNOC CEB
Laureate, draped, cuirassed bust right, seen from behind
(No legend)
Laureate, bare bust of Zeus right
L I | A across fields
22mm x 23mm, 9.29g
Emmett 3841
Ex Keith Emmett Collection; Ex Dussen, November 1994

http://www.vcoins.com/ancient/beastcoins/store/catalog/C0224.jpg

Gallienus, AE Tetradrachm, 267/268 (Year 15), Egypt-Alexandria
AUT K P LIK GALLIHNOC CEB
Laureate, cuirassed bust right
(No legend)
Draped bust of Selene right, hair piled on top of head, one curl falling across neck, facing large crescent to right, vertical palm in far right field
L I / E in left field
21mm x 23mm, 9.79g
Emmett 3834; Curtis X-1619
Ex Keith Emmett Collection

Enjoy! I know I am.

--Zach Beasley

[drjbca]

Zach,

Those are way cool bronze tetradrachms! One of these days, I'll get gung-ho with trying to have a collection of these types of coins (coins of Florian have just got to come first!). I picked up this little beauty from Incitatus Coins quite some time ago and I'm glad that I did!

Cheers!

John Barnard

[dlyumkis]

that's pretty cool, I have one just like it that I picked up from Harlan Berk some while back as well. It's also one of my favorites, for its rugged, yet crisp look