Nobel

If this medal was a Roman Coin, how would you catalog this obverse?

Add your suggestion to the comments.

SWAT team raids orchid grower

Last year I wrote an editorial for The Celator about how ancient coins could be controlled but self-registered to avoid the difficulties of an official government registry. I mentioned the problems of the 1973 Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species (CITES) treaty at controlling ivory.

A recent story on problems with CITES for flowers surprised me. An elephant has feelings, but a flower seems like just a flower. Yet the U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service takes orchids very seriously:

When 60-year-old Kathy Norris asked court officials why U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service's very own SWAT team had raided and ransacked her home, they helpfully explained, “You don't need to know. You can't know.”

George [Norris], along with his business associate Peruvian grower Manuel Arias-Silver, is charged with conspiracy to smuggle endangered phragmipediums (orchids) into the U.S. Since Manuel is one of only three growers to have been given permission by the Peruvian government to artificially propagate the newly discovered phragmipedium Kovachii, it appears that the U.S. government has singled out the pair for special attention over suspicions that this is the species they were smuggling. There appears to be little evidence of this, though it is likely the pair were taking some shortcuts on paperwork because of the challenges of importing other, legally propagated species, into the U.S.

(via bOING bOING)

Overstruck Greek Coins

David MacDonald, Overstruck Greek Coins (2009). 14+272 pages. List price $40.

This is a wonderful book! It's a good-quality hardcover. There is no dust jacket but the cover is glossy and full color. (What's the word for that?) Every page is glossy and in color. Each coin is shown enlarged in its section and illustrated again actual size on 22 plates at the end. 160 coins are discussed. The undertype is presenting by line drawings.

This review is a work-in-progress as I haven't finished the book.

Although this book is readable it's not intended for beginners. MacDonald doesn't waste a lot of space defining terms that you already know. It's also not a catalog. In the preface it's made clear that the book isn't even trying to list all commonly encountered overstrikes. It's unlikely but possible that catalogers will start including "MacDonald -" when selling overstricks.

This isn't a breathtaking coffee table book listing the highlights of Greek coin art. The coins are nicer than average grade, and often uglier than average. As MacDonald points out

Overstruck coins are usually ugly. They are not popular with most collectors and, consequently, are avoided by many dealers.

What makes this book wonderful is that the overstruck coins are used to jump into open questions on dating of ancient coins. MacDonald describes simply the currently accepted dating and why it might or must be wrong. He gives enough hints that I could follow the arguments without having to go look up stuff in other books. That's the real strength of this book. In a lot of journal-level numismatic writing the authors are writing towards other PhD classics professors which makes them hard to follow. This book is much smoother.

Because only 160 coins are discussed in nearly 300 pages there is enough room to give background on the coins. We get a lot more than whose on the front and a date range like "480-460". Each coin gets a quality discussion which tells us not just the the issue dates, but often tell us which expert proposed the dates and the historical events that begin or close the date range.

The presentation, with a line drawing of the visible part of the undertype and a photograph of the coin is new to me. It's a good way to present an overstruck coin. MacDonald only reveals the visible lines so there isn't much undertype to see if it is mostly obscured by the overstrike. I would have liked to have seen more undertype, maybe illustrated with dotted lines in grey to indicate that they were reconstructed. Not including those lines is probably more scientific though, because who wants to see reconstructed features that might just be imagination? It's incorrect to make up things in coin catalogs! Thus I think MacDonald chose the right format even if I want something else.

Note that the cover picture on this post, from Whitman's web site, isn't the cover of the actual book, although they are similar. The fake cover says 'Edited by' David MacDonald. The real cover shows those five coins and two more.

Images de la Gorgone

I'm trying to write a book on ancient coins depicting Medusa. To do a good job I need to read the other books on the subject and they can be hard to get.

I was especially interested in Images de la Gorgone (1985) by Irène Aghion and Evelyne Veljovic. It documents a 1985 exhibition by the Cabinet des Médailles of the Bibliothèque Nationale. That's the French national coin collection. The book isn't held in any of the usual places in New York. The ANS doesn't have a copy, nor the New York Public Library, nor NYU, nor Columbia. The nearest library copy I could locate is at Harvard, three hours away by car. I've never seen copies for sale and I've checked numismatic, book and eBay dealers.

The University of Michigan has a copy. They have a great service, MITS, that will photocopy articles and send them for a fee. They refused to copy Images! They are bound by US law ... they will only copy 100-year-old documents or documents registered with the Copyright Clearance Center. (If I was in the library myself they wouldn't bar me from using the machines.)

Next I tried the British Library. Same story. They cannot copy the book for me.

Eventually I found the book's entry at the Bibliothèque Nationale itself. Unlike the UofM and the British Library, getting photocopies from the BnF is a pain. I had to open an account, by mail — not email — request the book by mail, and pay with a euro-denominated money order by mail. It took about six months and cost about $80.

I assume the BnF realized that since they are the publishers they didn't have to be bound by copyright law.

This was a lot of work to obtain a photocopy of a recent rare book with a list price of 40 francs (about $7). The text is quite readable. The plates of my photocopy are muddy and difficult to see. I have no clue how good the original plates are.

This book is an example of an “orphan work.” Although I believe the authors are still alive and working for the BnF I couldn't figure out how to email them and didn't have the resources to track them down for permission.

Google's deal to get orphan works from libraries to readers failed. Folks on both sides of the discussion are talking about what should be done but what I'm reading is generalities. When you think about how society should handle orphan works, it's worthwhile to think of some specific examples like Images de la Gorgone. Suppose Google collected money on behalf of Aghion, Veljovic, and the BnF. How much could they expect to receive? I'd guess in all the world there is about $200 worth of interest in this book. I was about $80 interested in it, I'd guess 3 or 4 other people are that interested, maybe a a couple of dozen would be interested at $10 a copy.

No scheme in the world is going to get more money into the hands of the copyright holders.

In tomorrow's New York Times Book Review Lewis Hyde suggests that letting Google take a cut of the money would be like letting an executor drain an estate. He thinks the court should appoint a guardians to look for rights holders.

There is no money in 99% of orphan works. Most orphans are only worth a few dozen copies. That's the problem Google is trying to solve for five million orphans. Google wants to give researchers legal access to read truely rare books. The books that librarians and dealers consider ‘rare’ are books that are valuable. Those are the books on closed shelves in major libraries. Truely rare books are a bit more rare than that.

Recently a friend gave me John Yonge Akerman's Fourrès and forgeries: general observations on the coins and coinage of the Romans (1970). WorldCat reports exactly one copy of this book known. It's in Eastern Kentucky University Library. That's a rare book! It's not particularly interesting; it's just plate 14 and pages v-xix from Akerman's A descriptive catalogue of rare and unedited Roman coins (1834) plus a new photo plate by the publishers.

Do you want to see that book? You will have to go to Kentucky.

Errol Morris on art forger Han van Meegeren

I recently stumbled across Error Morris' seven-part essay on the artist and forger Han van Meegeren. He forged Vermeers in Nazi-occupied Netherlands.

Morris believes the false Vermeers were accepted not because of their resemblance to real Vermeers, but because they looked like a cross between Vermeers and the Nazi art of the day. Nothing about coins, but a bizarre story about how connoisseurs fool themselves.

...
The Uncanny Valley is a concept developed by the Japanese robot scientist Masahiro Mori. It concerns the design of humanoid robots. Mori’s theory is relatively simple. We tend to reject robots that look too much like people. Slight discrepancies and incongruities between what we look like and what they look like disturb us. The closer a robot resembles a human, the more critical we become, the more sensitive to slight discrepancies, variations, imperfections. ... You would think a close copy would be the goal of a forger, but it might not be a smart way to go. If you were a brilliant technician it might be an acceptable strategy, but my forger, Van Meegeren, is not as good as that. So if he’s going to try to pass himself off as Vermeer, he isn’t going to do it by painting “The Girl With Two Pearl Earrings.”

... nobody ever did any scientific test on Van Meegeren, even the stuff that was available in his day, until after he confessed. And to this day, people hardly ever test pictures, even multi-million dollar ones. And I was so surprised by that that I kept asking, over and over again: why? Why would that be? Before you buy a house, you have someone go through it for termites and the rest. How could it be that when you’re going to lay out $10 million for a painting, you don’t test it beforehand? And the answer is that you don’t test it because, at the point of being about to buy it, you’re in love!

(via Cheap Talk)

Looking for treasure

No coins, but the largest hoard of Anglo-Saxon gold was recently found in England. [New York Times]. NPR [audio + transcript].

... the discovery was not the outcome of a carefully planned archaeological enterprise, but the product of a lone amateur stumbling about with a metal detector.

Here in the US there aren't any Roman treasures to find with metal detectors. Or are there? In 1924 Charles Manier found two gigantic lead crosses with Roman-Jewish inscriptions outside Tucson Arizona. The crosses, swords, and other “Roman” relics were supposedly exhibited in Tucson in 2003 according to Western & Eastern Treasures magazine's copy of a story from the Tucson Citizen. However, the story doesn't show up in 2009 search of the Tucson paper's archives nor does it show up in current or archive.org searches of the Arizona State Museum's web site.

New York judge sinks Google reprint settlement

Bobbie Johnson reports in today's Guardian, “Google Books deal postponed after avalanche of criticism”.

The judge overseeing Google's controversial agreement with American publishers to digitise millions of books has delayed a hearing into the $125m deal - effectively shutting down the settlement and sending it back to the drawing board.

The deal, if and when it happens, will allow Google to sell out-of-print in-copyright books that it doesn't have the rights to. The money would go into a lockbox that the copyright holders could get when they realize they own money-making orphan books.

The good news is that Google and On Demand Books have a partnership to print public domain titles in bookstores using the Espresso Book Machine. You'll be able to walk into bookstores (currently in San Francisco; New Orleans; Ann Arbor; Manchester Center, Vermont; and Provo, Utah) and for $8 walk out with a paperback book such as Catalog of the Greek coins of Phyrgia.

And look at that cover! I feel certain it was auto-generated. I may be the first human to have ever seen the cover of this numismatic book, when I opened the web site this morning. If the Espresso Book Machine ever makes it to New York I will be ready with many titles I'm willing to pay $8 for. If the Google deal had gone through many titles from the 20th century could have been available for just a little more.

Charles Davis mail bid sale October 17, 2009

Charles Davis is holding a mail bid sale [PDF] October 17th. 691 lots. Many titles on British tokens. Lots 491-578 are titles on ancients and many of the ancients titles are useful catalogs: SNG volumes, Crawford on Roman Republican, RIC volumes etc.

The catalog gives the URL of Davis' (new?) site, http://​www.​charlesdavisnumismatics.​com/ which, at the time of this writing, is merely a gallery of photographs of numismatic books and bindings.

I received a copy in the mail today.

Creepy talking Rhodes tetradrachm

A creepy talking Rhodes tetradrachm urges you to shop for reproduction coin necklaces created by Boxing Pandora.

Another video of coin striking

William Bjornson, Arion the Wanderer, and Ian Cnulle of the An Tir Moneyers Guild demonstrate striking a coin in the ancient Greek style and the 2009 ANA Money Show.

There is a Yahoo group for folks who re-enact ancient methods of coining.

Gregory Zorzos goes commercial

Gregory Zorzos, whose strange ancient coin YouTube videos have been discussed before has gone commercial.

His videos Ancient coins from Bactriane and PICTURES OF BYZANTINE COINS
are available from Amazon.com as video on demand.

The price is $25 for a digital download that can be played on two computers. The Baktrian video can also be rented for seven days for $2. The first two minutes of the videos can be seen for free by following the links above.

Ancient Coin Auction Catalogues 1880-1980

Charles Davis is offering a new book by John Spring, Ancient Coin Auction Catalogues 1880-1980. It's described as 374 pages, size A4 (roughly equivelent to 8.5x11).

If any readers have seen it please leave a comment letting us know what you think.

Wikipedia on fourrées

Wikipedia's article on fourrées includes a section on modern fourrées which surprised me

The 1982 and later US one cent piece (Lincoln penny) is an example of a fourrée since it is zinc which has been plated with copper in a manner to deceive.

Nice! I hadn't thought about it that way before.

The image on this post is not from Wikipedia, but from my own collection of fourrées depicting Medusa. I bought this in 2003 and finally got around to scanning it. This one is from Rome, about 74 BC, with the name of the moneyer L. Cossutius C.f. Sabula. The numeral on the back, XXII I think for mine, is for the die; Michael Crawford says “The control-marks are the numerals from I to XXXXII; no control-numeral has more than one die.” I would be interested to see other XXII issues to see if they are in similar style to this fourrée.

Ancient silver coins in Uttar Pradesh

Thaindian News reports (no byline)

Lucknow, Aug 20 (IANS) Nearly 68 kg of ancient silver coins dating back to 1861 and 1892 were recovered from three men who were arrested in Uttar Pradesh’s Varanasi district, police said Thursday.
Rajesh Singh, Aditya Sharan and Mukesh Mishra were nabbed Wednesday night from Chetganj locality of Varanasi, about 250 km from here.

...

According to police, the coins carry symbols of Queen Victoria and King George V of Britain.

“We will hand over the coins to the archaeological department for evaluation,” said Rai.

How can this hoard date back to 1861 and 1892? Shouldn't it be one or the other?

Ukrainian detained for attempting to smuggle ancient coin into Ukraine

“Ukrainian detained for attempting to smuggle ancient coin into Ukraine” reports the Kyiv Post (no byline).

The press service of the Crimean customs service reported on Wednesday that a copper coin had been found in his wallet at the Kerch customs post.

According to preliminary reports, this is a coin from Panticapaeum dates (sic) to around 314-310 BC.

The illustration depicts not an ancient coin, but twelve old coins, mostly British pence with the reverse used in the 19th and 20th centuries.

Art Pantine repatination kits

A reader alerted me to the Art Patine web site, YouTube videos, and items of eBay seller la_vitrine_du_prospecteur. [A Google translation of the French site is available.]

Art Patine is selling a patination product for coins and antiquities, replica Roman coins (plus toy metal detector), and antiquities like this triple phallus.

As far as I know this is the first repatination product marketed directly to coin cleaners and replica merchants. The art of patinating isn't new, bronze artists have been doing it for centuries and there are even books such as Richard Hughes and Michael Rowe's The Colouring, Bronzing and Patination of Metals (1991) (I haven't read this.). I asked some zappers a few years ago about patination and they all insisted they don't do anything beyond reverse electrolysis.


If anyone is using this product I'd be interested in a review. I would also be interested in hearing from any bronze artists who patinate and want to guest-blog about it here.

I don't know much about detecting artificial patinas. Supposedly a real patina is thicker and often changes color or consistency with depth. Authentication seems to require destructively slicing into coins; I haven't been able to bring myself to do that. (It's also illegal damage antiquities in some countries). Does anyone out there have much experience with spotting artificial patinas?

Art Pantine also sells a product for silver plating coins (video here).

Andrew McCabe visits a bookbinder

Andrew McCabe describes his visit to a bookbinder on Moneta-L.

...

The real toughies were Martini, Haeberlin and Goodman. Martini was a special case, a softback with superb but loose plates that I needed to get bound into a recovered hardback. After a debate during which the bookbinder asked me "is this a valuable book" (it is, very.) he decided rather than stitching into the existing paper of the plates, to make a separate attachement to each plate which will then get stitched in.

...

Israel to require collectors to register?

Cultural Property Observer comments on a Jerusalem Post story by Jonah Newman on new enforcement of a 2002 law jailing unregistered collectors for up to six months. Under Israeli law, a collector is anyone with 15 or more artifacts.

This seems like a huge pain for the Israeli government, especially if, as Newman reports, 100,000 citizens have 15+ artifacts and collectors can choose to receive an appraisal of the historical significance of their artifacts. Who writes appraisals of 1,500,000+ artifacts?

Cultural Property Observer hints that the mandatory registration in Greece has devolved into a system where only wealthy, “connected,” people become “registered collectors.”.

I don't know much about the Greek registration system. It's described here. Apparently, under Greek law, the collector is required to give the government photographs of every object and facilitate visits. The collector “shall be responsible for the unity of a collection. The collection may be dispersed upon permit granted by the Minister of Culture following an opinion of the Central Archaeological Council.” What does that mean? If a Greek collector decides to trade a coin with another registered collector do both need permission from the Central Archaeological Council? How often does it meet?

Greek collectors have some rights, for example they are entitled to “reproduce and dispose of photographs or other representations of their monuments.” Does this mean non-collectors cannot dispose of photographs? How do do non-collectors dispose of photographs they don't want anymore?

Medals of Dishonor

I am not in London and unable to see Medals of Dishonor at the British Museum.

It's an exhibit of satirical and political medals from the 16th to the 20th centuries, including medals recently commissioned. The web site includes a gallery of 18 medals. TimeOut: London has a review.

OxbowBooks has the catalog for $30 and Amazon has it available for preorder.

Numismatists needed (for pay!)

The editors of Business Standard report “Jobs aplenty in archaeology dept, but no takers”.

There are many a job opening, with posts falling vacant regularly, but there are no candidates to fill them up. This is the plight of the Archaeological Survey of India ...

...

“The situation is still deplorable in this area. Across the country, there are hardly 3-4 numismatists left to study old and ancient coins,” he said.

Underling the urgent need to create a cadre of epigraphists and numismatists, Rao said the Vivekananda Institute of Indian Studies (VIIS) of which he is the director would start shortly programmes in Indian studies including epigraphy and numismatics in co-operation with the ASI and the directorate.

...