I managed to work out a deal for another of the extremely rare final Western Roman emperors for my 5th century Roman collection. This time its a coin of the Emperor Majorian, who was one of the most able Roman emperors/generals you've never heard of. The acquisition of this coin (all of his coins are extremely hard to find) basically means I'll be on the wagon for a long while, but I'm really passionate about this era and its coinage so for me its worth it In the 450s AD, things looked bleak for the western part of the Roman Empire. Even though the Huns had been stopped in Gaul, the barbarian tribes were pressing down further onto Rome's remaining territories, and with the death of the powerful Magister Militum Flavius Aetius, there was seemingly no one to keep the tribes at bay and hold the crumbling empire together. Two puppet emperors and another sack of Rome later, Majorian (full name: Flavius Julius Valerius Majorianus Augustus) and his friend and ally Ricimer came to power in 457 AD, becoming emperor of the west and Magister Militum respectively. Ricimer sought to control Majorian as simply another puppet, but Majorian proved himself powerful and independent. With his years of army experience aiding him, he took the fight to Rome's barbarian enemies; defeating Vandal and Alamanni raiders, taking back parts of Gaul and most of Hispania, and forcing several defeated tribes back to a federated status. Majorian also introduced reforms to more efficiently run the Western empire. But fate turned against him. Treachery resulted in the destruction of the fleet he had assembled to invade the Vandals in North Africa. This and his reforms made Majorian very unpopular with the Roman Senate. Ricimer took advantage of this, and after Majorian had disbanded most of his loyal army, Ricimer had him arrested, tortured, and later executed in 461 AD. Majorian was 40 years old. The Western Roman Empire would fall just 15 years after his death. http://www.roman-empire.net/collapse/majorian.html http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Majorian Roman Empire in 460 AD during the reigns of Majorian (purple), and Leo I (light purple): Majorian, Western Roman Empire AE Nummus Obv: DN IVL MAIORIANVS PE AVG, pearl-diademed, draped bust right Rev: VICTORI-A AVGGG, Victory advancing right, holding palm branch and trophy Mint: Milan (MD in ex), struck 457-461 AD Ref: RIC X 2642
Atta-boy, Jango ... another interesting score!! I certainly don't have too many coins from the 5th century AD (you seem to collect all of the tricky lil' off-the-beaten-path coins ... very cool)
Lol, you got this off of bargain bin. Despite being pretty scarce, I wouldnt have paid even a $100 for it. I know the majority of his coins are scraps but the portrait and nearly slick reverse turns me off. I felt it was being charged too much too for its flaws. But if your happy thats all that matters.
Very cool pickup VK. I like the history too. So much going on in the 5th century leading up to the collapse of the Western Roman Empire. It's fascinating. Well done.
Congrats on a really rare coin that is not even available very often. I imagine the price had to be high for that emperor. Pretty soon the only ones left will be gold coins for those late emperors.
Another great feather in your cap, VK. Well-done, sir. I can empathize completely with buying an expensive rarity that doesn't have much eye appeal compared to the "nice" coins. I'm almost done paying off a Nabataean drachm, which will give me a complete type set of the coins of Rabbel II. I'm not even going to post what I paid for it, because I would expect a comment like, "You paid WHAT for that???" You get into the mindset of thoroughly exploring a particular time period and culture, and nothing but the coins of that period will do - no amount of lovely coins by other emperors will fill the empty holes in the set you're pursuing.
I'm afraid I was cursed with wanting more from my coins than simple eye-appeal. I am a believer of being at least somewhat interested in the history behind whatever coins you collect; this for me gives me more purpose and fun in collecting than just basically hoarding shiny coins. Having this open mindset, I feel like I've become a better collector for it. My collecting journey has led me to reading a lot more history than I ever received in school, and felt my interest and fascination fall towards the fall of Rome and the aftermath, and the coins from this era help me to connect to this tumultuous time in Roman history. So yes, I am quite satisified with my new coin. Precisely why I also don't post what I paid and where I got them with these kinds of coins. I know yours, mine, and similar coinages aren't for every collector, and don't need to be reminded by others that most on here wouldn't dare to pay what I paid for my coins, especially when I never asked in the first place for opinions on what I paid.
Yeah, some would criticize about some high priced coins but the truth is that some of those later emperors are so rare that some would pay 6 figures for some even barely identifiable. This emperor has a ERIC II rarity ranking of 150. There is a price estimation as well but will refrain to avoid anyone from getting angry, perhaps. Honestly, if I had the money, I'd get one to fill that slot.
Precisely. If you're going for a set, and some of the most pricey ones are also the so-called "ugliest" ones, you'll have to choose between paying a lot of money for those, or having an uncompleted set. Depending on what you collect there will be times where you will have to lower your standards to fill that hole in your collection.
Was going to add this to my post from earlier but edit time ran out. Because you are probably used to collecting more "flawless" coins. More perfect examples easily go for $1000+. And the gold, unless you are a millionaire, you can forget about those. That is how rare these last few emperors are. And last time I checked, rarity can definitely add to price. Pretty much outside of a very lucky uncleaned lot, you won't find any being sold for under $300, even the bronzes. One, because there is enough demand from specialists to keep the prices up and two, they don't come up for sale often. CNG amazingly has not one but two being auctioned at the moment, with the one sightly worse than mine trailing not far behind what I paid for mine and the other better-condition one at slightly more. All this is with 11 days to go, so I have no doubt the bidding will go up some more. Also, the bronze types already sold over the years sold at higher prices, even those hardly in better shape than mine that had been sold 7-8 years ago. All this leads me to believe that I actually got a decent deal on mine (btw I didn't buy my example at the original listed price that you saw).
Some of you have seen these but thought I'd also share my coins of Majorian's friend-turned-traitor Ricimer (actually of Libius Severus but has Ricimer's monogram) and his co-emperor in the east Leo I: Libius Severus/Ricimer: Leo I:
Quite the interesting coin VK. The die used seems excessively large for the size of the flan. It looks like you have a good portion of the name on this coin. No doubt about who it is which is nice! I must admit sometimes I see one of your coins and I go 'really, how do you know it is that person' but I defer to your expertise on these coins since I know very little about this period and just haven't done the research to know what to look for.
Surprisingly, the bronzes of Majorian are actually a little bigger than your average late 5th century Western bronze nummi. Mine is 11 mm wide (maybe 12 or even 13 when first struck), still small in the grand scheme of things but bigger than the normal 7-9 mm. And fortunately with Majorian, his bronzes tend to use a dot for every instance of the letter O in the legends (from what I've seen not all of them though and only for Milan struck coins), so that's one way to spot a coin of his. Oh and its better in hand. I'd shoot my own photos but my camera is lost!
Found something interesting about the money struck during this era. Apparently such little faith was put into it that even "tax collectors refused the legal tender of the day and instead demanded payment in money minted by second-century emperors". This caused enough public displeasure to have Majorian do away with all past debts then owed to the state treasury, adding to his popularity with the common people. (http://www.dirtyoldcoins.com/roman/id/Coins-of-Roman-Emperor-Majorian.htm)
