| Ira & Larry Goldberg Coins & Collectibles > Auction 137 | Auction date: 29 January 2024 |
| Lot number: 1243 Price realized: 2,600 USD (Approx. 2,408 EUR) Note: Prices do not include buyer's fees. | |
| Lot description: The Dr. Robert Haber Collection of Ancient Jewish City Coinage - Part 1. A 24-piece collection of different Jewish City Coinage in the Roman Period. Includes coins of Aelia Capitolina, Ascalon, Abila, Caesarea, Esbus, Eleutheioplis, Gaza, Gadera, Gaba, Philadelphia, Raphia, and more. All different. Condition ranges from mostly VG to Fine. A wonderful selection of cities and types. Estimated Value $1,000 - UP All from various Goldberg auctions 1970s thru 1980s. Includes auction tags. |  |
Match 1:
| Ira & Larry Goldberg Coins & Collectibles > Auction 137 | Auction date: 29 January 2024 |
| Lot number: 1244 Price realized: 2,600 USD (Approx. 2,408 EUR) Note: Prices do not include buyer's fees. | |
| Lot description: The Dr. Robert Haber Collection of Ancient Jewish City Coinage - Part 2. A 24-piece collection of ancient Jewish City Coins of Eretz Israel and the Decopolis in the Roman Period. Condition ranges from mostly VG to Fine. A wonderful selection of cities and types. Estimated Value $1,000 - UP All from various Goldberg auctions 1970s thru 1980s. Includes auction tags and descriptions. |  |
Match 2:
| Ira & Larry Goldberg Coins & Collectibles > Auction 137 | Auction date: 29 January 2024 |
| Lot number: 1241 Price realized: 1,800 USD (Approx. 1,667 EUR) Note: Prices do not include buyer's fees. | |
| Lot description: The Balance of the Dr. Robert Haber Collection of Ancient Judean and Biblical Coins. Consists of approximately 60 coins, mostly bronzes. Covers all the periods of ancient Jewish coinage from the Hasmonean, Herodian, Procuratorial, Jewish War and Bar Kokhba Revolt. Coins range from Fair to Fine with a number of coins that can be improved with proper care. Estimated Value $2,000 - UP All from various Goldberg auctions, 1970s and 1980s includes auction tags and descriptions. |
Match 3:
| Ira & Larry Goldberg Coins & Collectibles > Auction 137 | Auction date: 29 January 2024 |
| Lot number: 1242 Price realized: 480 USD (Approx. 445 EUR) Note: Prices do not include buyer's fees. | |
| Lot description: 38-piece Collection of Biblical and Roman Coinage from the Dr. Robert Haber Collection. Consists of mostly Judean bronzes in VG to Fine condition. Covers most areas of ancient Judean coinage. Estimated Value $500 - UP All acquired from mail bid auctions conducted by Joel L. Malter and Danny B. Crabb, both Southern California coin dealers in the 1960s and 1970s. |
Match 4:
| Classical Numismatic Group > Auction 126 | Auction date: 28 May 2024 |
| Lot number: 1029 Price realized: This lot is for sale in an upcoming auction - Bid on this lot  | |
| Lot description: Umayyad Caliphate. temp. 'Abd al-Malik ibn Marwan to 'Umar ibn Abd al-Aziz. AH 65-101 / AD 685-720. AV Solidus (16mm, 4.35 g, 6h). North Africa (Carthage) mint. Struck circa AH 79-90 (AD 698-710). NON ЄST dS NIS IPSЄ SOL CS ЄT NON ABЄII, crowned and draped Byzantine-style older and younger facing busts (modeled on Heraclius and Heraclius Constantine) / [...]NOΔNCI SIb ЄbNCIPIAS OΔЄI, modified cross potent, surmounted by globus and set on two steps. SICA 1 –; AGC I 9 (this coin illustrated); cf. Walker, Arab-Byzantine p. 55, HSA 1 and 145 (AV Semissis); cf. Album 115 (for similar issue with horizontal bar on steps). Iridescent toning, deposits in devices. Good VF. Unique. From the Family of Constantine Collection, assembled with guidance by Roland Michel, Geneva. Ex Triton VI (13 January 2003) lot 1189; Dr. Anton C. R. Dreesmann Collection (Part II, Spink 144, 13 July 2000), lot 846, purchased from J. Schulman, 14 November 1967. The Muslim conquest of North Africa began during the caliphate of Mu'awiya (AH 41-60 / AD 661-680). Qayrawan, the capital of the new Umayyad province of Ifriqiya, was founded by the general 'Uqba b. Nafi' in AH 50 (AD 670). The Arab conquest, however, was met with determined resistance, from the Berbers as well as Byzantine forces, and the great city of Carthage remained a Byzantine stronghold in North Africa for a quarter of a century. It was only in AH 76 (AD 695) that the city first fell to the Arabs when the inhabitants surrendered to the besieging forces of Hassan b. al-Nu'man. While many of the wealthier inhabitants fled to Italy, Greece and Spain, the rest of the city's population offered no resistance and Hassan occupied Carthage without much bloodshed. Judging his position secure, Hassan constructed chains across the city's harbor to deter the Byzantines from launching a counter-attack by sea, and then departed with most of his troops to meet the threat of the Berbers to the west. Hassan's faith in these chains proved misplaced. The Byzantine emperor Leontius sent a strong naval force under John the Patrician to retake Carthage. John equipped his largest ships with specially reinforced hulls, allowing him to smash through the chains and land safely in the city's harbor. Outnumbered, the Arab garrison was no match for John's Sicilian and Gothic troops. John quickly retook the city, and the defenders withdrew to Qayrawan. But the Byzantines were hopelessly slow to support John's initial success, so that Hassan reappeared before the walls of Carthage with a fresh army before John's reinforcements had even left the port of Constantinople. Now it was John's turn to find himself helpless in the face of a far superior force, and he had little option but to withdraw. The Byzantine army held the walls long enough to allow a hasty but relatively orderly retreat; Hassan reoccupied Carthage in AH 79 (AD 698). Fearing the consequences of having to report their failure to Leontius, John's troops mutinied, killing John and proclaiming one of their number, Apsimar, as emperor. Apsimar's forces entered Constantinople later in AD 698, deposing and mutilating Leontius, and leaving Apsimar to rule as Tiberius III. It is possible to trace the course of these momentous events in the coinage record. The Byzantine mint at Carthage was evidently still active in AH 76, since Carthaginian solidi are known dated to the tenth year of the reign of Justinian II (MIB 18b), so when the city first surrendered to Hassan b. al-Nu'man the Arabs would have taken control of an operational Byzantine mint for solidi. This in itself would have been a highly significant development, because there had been no active gold mint in any of the Byzantine provinces which the Arabs had previously conquered, leaving them dependent on imported solidi to maintain coinage stocks. Thus once Carthage was securely in Muslim hands after the defeat of John in AH 79, the victorious Arabs began to strike gold coins of their own there, including the unique piece offered here. Although 'Abd al-Malik b. Marwan had introduced reformed, purely Islamic dinars at Damascus in AH 77 (AD 696/7), the Arabs continued to strike gold which copied earlier Byzantine types, recognizing the need to produce coins which would have been acceptable to the local population. Interestingly, they chose to copy an issue of Heraclius (AD 610-641) rather than the most recent solidi of Justinian II, probably to avoid the adverse political connotations of being seen to follow current Byzantine types; this preference for an older prototype is also seen on the Arab-Sasanian silver drachms struck in the Eastern Islamic territories, which usually bore the portrait of the long-dead Khusraw II rather than the last Sasanian ruler, Yazdigerd III. The new Arab solidi, which maintain the familiar 'globular' fabric of their Byzantine predecessors, were struck to the local Byzantine weight standard and issued in three denominations: solidus, semissis, and tremissis. They bear the familiar twin facing busts of Heraclius and Heraclius Constantine, largely unaltered except for the removal of all overtly Christian crosses, and a similarly 'de-Christianized' cross-on-steps on the reverse. The legends, written in abbreviated Latin rather than Arabic, are monotheistic rather than Islamic: the proclamation on the obverse of this coin that 'There is no God but God alone and He has no associate' would have been largely acceptable to Christians and Muslims alike. On virtually all surviving examples of this rare coinage, the modification of the cross-on-steps is used to indicate the denomination. Solidi and tremisses generally have the upper limb of the cross removed so that the shaft terminates in a T-bar, while semisses replace the cross with a globe. While there has been much scholarly debate over the symbolism of these changes, comparison with Byzantine prototypes suggests that the Arabs simply turned the Byzantine cross on each denomination upside-down, so that the base of the cross on the prototype became the top of the modified cross on the Arab adaptation. Thus the base of the cross potent on the tremisses becomes a T-bar set on a single step, the globe at the base of the cross potent on the semisses becomes a globe set atop a pole on two steps, and the cross-on-steps on the solidi also becomes a shaft surmounted by a T-bar set on three steps. The unique solidus offered here appears to be the only known solidus of this type which has a globe on top of the cross shaft instead of a T-bar. It does not fit with the system of denominations and types which the Arabs used for their Carthaginian coinage, and instead appears to look back to the modified cross-on-steps dinars with Arabic legends issued at Damascus before the introduction of the reformed gold coinage in AH 77 (AD 696/7). This in turn raises the tantalizing possibility that this unique piece might have been struck circa AH 76-77, during Hassan's first occupation of Carthage, and that Hassan simply followed current Damascus practice in striking solidi with a globe atop the cross-shaft on the reverse. It would only have been after the defeat and expulsion of John, when the Arabs had time to establish a structured denominational system for their Carthaginian gold coinage, that the decision would have been taken to use a T-bar instead of a globe on the solidi. Estimate: 20000 USD |  |
Match 5:
| Heritage World Coin Auctions > CSNS Signature Sale 3115 | Auction date: 8 May 2024 |
| Lot number: 31001 Price realized: 7,500 USD (Approx. 6,977 EUR) Note: Prices do not include buyer's fees. | |
| Lot description: Ancients BRUTTIUM. Croton. Ca. 425-350 BC. AR stater (22mm, 7.93 gm, 8h). NGC Choice XF★ 4/5 - 5/5, Fine Style. Eagle standing right, head raised, with wings displayed / ϘPO, tripod lebes with three handles, legs terminating in lion's feet; vertical bay leaf to left, all in shallow incuse circle. Gulbenkian I 128 (same obverse die). HN Italy 2148. SNG ANS 345. Stunning and artistic piece with a prestigious collection history. This coin features lovely charcoal cabinet toning and subtle luster that shines from within. Ex Long Valley River Collection (Roma Numismatics, Auction XX, 29 October 2020), lot 34; Heritage Auctions, Auction 3071 (7 January 2019), lot 34002; Johns Hopkins University Collection (Bank Leu-Numismatic Fine Arts, 16-18 October 1984), lot 112; John Work Garrett (1872-1942) Collection, privately purchased from Spink in June 1926; Frank Sherman Benson (1854-1907) Collection (Sotheby's, 3 February 1909), lot 112; Sir Edward Herbert Bunbury (1811-1895) Collection (Sotheby's, 15 June 1896), lot 204. Croton, an ancient Greek city situated in the southern part of the Italian peninsula in the region of Bruttium (now Calabria), boasts a rich and storied past dating back to around the 8th century BCE. Founded by Achaean Greek settlers, the city emerged as part of the broader wave of Greek colonization across the Mediterranean. Its foundation is steeped in legend, but as with most myths and stories of ole, there are multiple versions or explanations that often contradict one another. While Croton has multiple founding stories, they converge around a single founder, Myscellus, and his influences from the god Apollo and/or the mythic hero, Heracles. This divine connection not only lent Croton a sacred status but also deeply influenced its cultural and religious identity. After its establishment at the bottom of Italy's boot, Croton quickly flourished due to its advantageous geographical position, nestled on the coast of the Ionian Sea. This prime location facilitated trade, fishing, and agriculture, contributing to the city's rapid economic growth and prosperity. Moreover, the city gained a reputation for its remarkable achievements in athletics, philosophy, and medicine. This reputation attracted famous figures such as athlete Milo of Croton and the philosopher Pythagoras, who founded his renowned school there. According to ancient lore, the founder, Myscellus, was directed by the god Apollo, known for his oracular powers, to find and establish Croton. In Strabo (Geography, VI, 2), it is said that Myscellus traveled to the Delphi to consult with the oracle at the same time as a man named Archais. The oracle relayed to the two men that Apollo could give them either wealth or health. While Achais chose wealth and went on to found the wealthy colony Syracuse. Myscellus chose health and would land and prosper in the fertile land of Croton, a center for famous athletes and medicinal doctors. Also, this close connection to Apollo explains the inclusion of his emblematic tripod to hold a prominent placement of their earliest coinage. In ancient times, tripods were used as altars to sacrifice to the gods (including Apollo), and it was also the highest prize given to the victor of athletic games. https://coins.ha.com/itm/ancients/greek/ancients-bruttium-croton-ca-425-350-bc-ar-stater-22mm-793-gm-8h-ngc-choice-xfand-9733-4-5-5-5-fine-style/a/3115-31001.s?type=DA-DMC-CoinArchives-WorldCoins-3115-05082024 HID02906262019 © 2024 Heritage Auctions | All Rights Reserved Estimate: 10000-12000 USD |  |
