A Coin to Commemorate My Joining the Ancient Coin Club of Los Angeles

Germe, Mysia, civic coinage, 25.7mm (8.31gm).

Draped bust of a youthful Senate right, IEPA CYNKΛHT[OC] / Zeus seated left holding eagle and sceptre, CEΞI ΦAY-CTOY ΓEP-MH. SNG Von Aulock 1090 var. (unlisted strategos); SNG France 951 var.; RPC IV (online) 658; ANS 1971.230.6 var.

This coin can be dated to the time of Marcus Aurelius (AD 161-180). Ed Snible's wonderful website provided the time frame from this strategos:

http://www.snible.org/coins/library/muensterberg/lydia.html#Germe

In each reference cited above, the strategos differed from this coin. I submitted this coin to the authors of RPC IV online (http://rpc.ashmus.ox.ac.uk/coins/658)... perhaps it'll be cited there someday! Keep a look out for "Brett Telford collection" or the mention of the strategos Faustoy at this url.


I spent quite a bit of time and enlisted the help of a couple of friends in an attempt to find a definite reference. I am not content with a reference listed as a variant if a definite might exist. However, in this case, all known references, save BMC Greek, were consulted. My thanks to Tom Mullaly and John Noory for their assistance in finding references for this coin.

I bought this coin at my first Ancient Coin Club of Los Angeles (ACCLA) meeting from Merrill Gibson of Apollo Numismatics (Vcoins). The obverse grabbed my attention immediately for its artistic rendering of Senate and because of its great patina! I suppose this coin will serve to commemorate my joining the ACCLA.

I also learned something in researching this coin. I have to admit that I had no idea what the term strategos meant. So, for those who don't know, a strategos is an army leader or general. In the Helenistic and Byzantine Empires, the term was used to describe a military governor.

This coin is one of my favorites, even though it isn't within my core collecting area of the Twelve Caesars. It's a nice coin and I had a lot of fun researching it!