What do you do when buying from a new company? I normally like to watch some of their auctions, see what CT folks think, read info on their web site, and such. This time, all I could find was their auctions on biddr.ch. The company lists a home SE of London for their contact address (at least that is what google maps says). The company is recently incorporated and I could not find the company or only employee on LinkedIn. Normally that is enough to discourage me from bidding. But the piece was inexpensive, less than $100. So I crossed my fingers and bid anyway. Roman Steelyard Weight in form of Head 1st-3rd century AD 3.1cm Intact, green patina. Post something that turned out better than you thought it might based on where you found / bought it. PS - anyone hear of St Paul Antiques (London not Minn.)?
I've shown this before. Found it in Spain wandering around some Roman ruins (I can't recall which site).
@fstake It looks like an ancient scale weight to me. What size (dia & height) and weight? If you google search for ancient scale weight or Byzantine scale weight you can see other examples.
@rrdenarius That is a great looking weight. Very nice. As for St Paul Antiques I felt the same way you did. I was a little bit leery of bidding on one of their auctions. However, I did bid and won the following lifetime tet of Alexander for 110 pounds. The service was very good and the shipping was very quick.
Wow, rrdenarius => that's an amazing new score (super-cool old weight) I have a few very old coins (or were they weights?) ... => yup, my sweet ol' cast AE examples ... 5th century BC (among the earliest bronze coins/weights) Oh, and this sweet 8500 Series TREK Bike was also an amazing surprise ... simply amazing!! (light, fast and super-cool)
@rrdenarius very cool shipyard weight! It has an Egyptian or perhaps Indian look to it. I see that it is 3.1cm...any idea what it weighs? And I have never heard of St. Paul antiques
