New year, new chronicle; since the last one has passed three months, and obviously a lot of things speaking of numismatics; first I will go into this subject, and later to the central one of this chronicle, to make my numismatic review of 2010.

The last two months of 2010

A constant in this period was that I had little time for the subject; anyways I could follow last year's auctions in Spain and prepare the ones at the New York International Convention which was held in the second week of January; most of the purchases have been of ancient coins, mostly Roman, with some rather interesting additions as this
Tetradrachm of Hadrianus. Harlan Berk Buy or Bid Sale 171th, lot #486 Alexandrian tetradrachm of Hadrianus, from Harlan Berk. One of the ideas that I have grasped in the recent months, confirmed again in the New York auction, is that all is sold especially if it is at a fair price, and the good is very difficult to be sold cheap. Prices are not changing very much; I get the impression that the middle coins have more or less the same prices, and the good ones are slightly more expensive (at least in my opinion), but the number of lots not sold is significantly lower than at beginning of year .

The bibliographic part has been very active, mainly in ancient numismatics. Among the titles purchased I highlight three: Estudio de los reales de a ocho, by Tomas Dasi; this monumental compendium-study (it is composed of 5 volumes of 400 pages each), focusing on reales de a ocho, is particularly interesting for the compilation of legislation concerning the Spanish mintings from the Catholic Kings. Coins of the Roman Republic in the British Museum, by H. A. Grueber; this is the second edition of 1970, driven in part by the work of Crawford¹ on the Republican coinage, showed, between several of his published works, in the canonical manual on this series Roman Republican Coinage; the work of Grueber, especially this second edition with corrections and an appendix illustrating the museum's acquisitions since the first edition (1910), is an excellent addition to Crawford, especially because Grueber presents a set of notes of historical character to place in context each coin type of exceptional interest; also it is worth to mention the corpus of coins imaged, in 123 plates, of a pretty good quality, making a visual archive very comprehensive and useful for this series. And last of all, Byzantine coins, by Philip Grierson, an excellent primer in a single volume on the Byzantine coinage, from Anastasius, emperor in the East from 491, until the fall of Constaninopolis in 1453, including a brief discussion of the various succesor 'states' of the empire that appeared after 1203 taking of Constaninopolis by the army of the 4th crusade. It presents an interesting corpus of images, which together with Byzantine Coins and Their values by Sear are a good guide to get started with collecting these series.

And little more to outline; a visit to the Vincente Craven-Bartle's numismatic convention held in Valencia in late October, which resulted in a couple of very good acquisitions, and a visit to a coin shop in Madrid that led to the purchase of the last year coin. I had no time for much else, really.

Numismatic review of 2010

Although my numismatic activity began in the last quarter of 2008, I can set the full year as a good calendar of my activities without excessive loss of precision; so 2010 was my second year of numismatic activity. Looking back I think it was a really interesting year, in which I consolidated strongly my hobby, and I learned a lot (although much less than I had liked); as well, as a summary, it may be said that it has been the year of the ancient coins, both in monetary and bibliographic character. Most coins and books added to my collection are primarily of the Roman series; also present was the Iberian and Celtic coins; I consciously set aside the Greek and Oriental series, not because they uninterested me, but because my budget does not allow me to attack so many fronts at once, and the literature on Greek coinage is especially onerous and dispersed, which makes having a minimally complete library incredibly expensive (we are talking of a minimum of 5.000€, just for a library containing the minimum compendiums to have controlled most of the types of Greek coins, and the monographs needed to complement the compendiums); for example, the double volume Greek Coins and Their values by Sear, that for many is the introduction on the subject, devotes four pages to pre-Roman Iberian coinage, and only a few more to the very complex series of Alexander the Great, both the Macedonian and the imitation. One must keep in mind that a lot of Greek poleis minted enough to have material for a rather bulky monograph for themselves: Athens, Syracuse, Rhodes, Cizicus, Alexandria under the Ptolemies, Carthago, etc... if we go to eastern series, we have enormous corpus in the Bactrian, Partian, Sasanid and the Kushan Empire coinages; this is something that attracts me especially, but I have to leave for later; for now, I just pick the part of the Iberian and Celtic Britain that connects with my collections of coins.

To illustrate it, at the part of my coins, we have both the coin with which I began the year, this denarius of Faustina
Denarius of Faustina. Gemini VI, lot #450 I acquired at the Gemini VI, and with which I ended it, this Alexandrian copper tetradrachm of Aurelian and Vaballathus,
Copper tetradrachm of Aurelianus and Vaballathus, private purchase. purchased privately

But the 2010 coin in my collection, which I emphasize above all others is this one: a countermark of George III on a columnario 8 reales of Carlos III of Mexico of 1762, to give a value of 4s.9d.
4 shillings 9 pennies of George III countermarked over a columnario 8 reales of Carlos III from Mexico of 1762, private purchase.; this coin, which was acquired privately, is almost a dream come true, because I could buy it at a very small price; a similar piece, albeit in better conservation and from the Lima mint, is the one that I put in the la moneda con mayuscula IV, and ironically, I exposed it as one of the pieces that I wolud like to have more, and a few days later after writing that entry I put my hands on my coin.

From a less personal point of view, I think that the year has been quite positive; in the auction field we have seen important landmarks such as the auction of the collection 'Hispania' of "el Centenario" by Aureo on October 26th, or the BCD collection Lokris-Phokis by NAC on October 8th; I want to note especially these two auctions because are not the typical with more or less good lots collected from a few vendors, but are systematic series with the intention of completeness, and therefore become necessary reference points; for a discussion of the 'Hispania' I refer to Adolfo; for BCD's Lokris-Phokis I refer to the same catalog, which culled the auctioneer Roberto Russo's comment: "[...] the current way of buying coins that it makes BCD look like he’s come from another world and randomly landed among us. Today, all too often, small groups of coins are gathered with the main aim of making a lucrative investment. In this framework, the search for quality becomes an obsession and it matters little if there is no logical link between one specimen and the other or even a real plan. The only excuse for today’s collector is the limited time available to study and the inadequacy of most dealers to convey the right approach with this only seemingly easy discipline. Unfortunately today the coin trade is full of coin dealers (many of which are highly successful), but true numismatists are few and far between"

On the purely economic side, and as I mentioned in above, it seems that the market is getting hotter, the unsold lots are scarce, and if the pieces come at a good price will sell all, no matter that we speak of 100€ or 10,000€; the search for the coin quality seems to be more exacerbated than ever, and can be seen at some auctions that the best pieces are fought in hot biddings that inevitably end in too high hammer prices, while the next lower set in the ladder bring up just the estimated price. About this, I highlight the PCGS landing in Paris, something I think is bad news, but what I will deal in future publications; it seems that continues to enter money from non-numismatic investors, and in large quantity; I suppose that guided by professional dealers, going for the 'big ones'; this is leading to absurdities, such as those I saw at live at the Gemini VII, which I will discuss in the next chronic, such as pieces ending at 10x hammer prices of its initial estimates.

To end the auction section in Spain, to say that in general, it seemed a good year, with notable events such as that held by Marti Hervera/Soler Llach/Numismática Segarra in the philatelic convention, the above before mentioned 'Hispania' and Vico's last bringing a magnificent collection of Iberian coinage; and by other side — negative— to note something that I have not finished yet fully to understand, as was the German coinage auction held earlier this year by Cayon, in which many of the lots eventually got not sold. Overall I have the impression that prices have remained stable, but as I said before, with fewer lots not sold.

Notes:
¹ Showed, between several of his published works, in the canonical manual on this series Roman Republican Coinage; in regard, it seems that Crawford asked the British Museum to republish the work of Grueber, completely out of print in 1970 and very difficult to achieve, to make it more accessible and to enable to be purchased with his book; he prefaces the new edition.