QUESTION: You said you had purchased a hoard of the Persian coinage of Darius from the famous invasion of Greece. And will you have any sets of the 12 Caesars? And will you sell any of the uncirculated $20 gold coins from that hoard?
FH
ANSWER: No, I had no intention of selling any $20 gold from the hoard. As far as the 12 Caesars, I am missing Otho, which have been trying to buy without any success. I will post some hoards this week. Yes, I have a small number of the Darius siglos. They are worn and have banker marks to verify that they were genuine from ancient FOREX dealers. I have also a small number of small bronze numis from the family of Constantine the Great which are all under $100. I have also a hard-to-find hoard of the first Gallic emperor, Postumus struck still in silver.
I did manage to buy this Gallic hoard so I have the Victorinus once again that we sold out of. This lot is generally XF but without the silver wash. This will be priced at $100. VF examples will generally go for about $50 and FVF will be around $25. I only took the high-quality ones which you can see in the photo.
However, this also shows the debasement for Rome debased its coinage, it forced the Gallic Empire to follow suit or else its coinage would have been hoarded and the money supply would have collapsed. This is an important historical example of CONTAGION if the core economy debased, there was no choice but to do the same. The debasement of Henry the VIII of England was actually in response to the debasement that was also taking place in the core currency – that of Spain.
Others have asked if I can offer any Gallienus that shows the collapse in the Roman Monetary System between 260-268AD. You can see the stake difference 8.6 years made in the monetary system of Rome.
As far as the 12 Caesars are concerned, I am doing my best to assemble a few sets. These are not easy to put together. Nevertheless, I am giving it a shot to see what I can do that would be reasonably priced, under that $100k people ask on the market. Let me see.
