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by Michael E. Marotta, 13 Mar 1995
Sunday, March 12. The Lansing Coin Club semi-annual show was a huge success. Attendance was high and people were buying. I worked the show at the sign-in table for five hours and spent about an hour and a half on the floor.
(1) I bought three unused copies of Newell's 1937 classic, Royal Greek Portrait Coins. $5 each. I got another at a previous show for $6. These will be sold to members of the Ancient Numismatic Collectors via the Trapeza quarterly.
(2) I got a Japanese 50 Sen from 1923 (Y46) in fine for $2. This is the most common year of a common issue and according to K&M, in less than high grade, they are BV only. However, I have my own opinion on such coins and this one now looks nice with my other Japanese silvers.
(3) I got an Antonius Felix Ioylia Agrippina Judaic bronze with most of the reverse clearly readable, though the obvious requires a reference and imagination to see more than TI KL for Tiberius Klaudius. This was $10.
(4) I also picked up some small old post-modern Israeli. These were 15 cents each and will help highlight my talks to church and temple congregations on Judaic coinage, since they have the same devices: wheat, pomegranite, etc., as ancients. In that same batch at 15 c. each are 19th century penny-sized bronzes from Britain, France, etc. I love those old coppers with their Liberty goddesses; I give them out at New Age shows.
I saw a counterfeit denarius from Tiberius, ("They sell tons of them in Israel to tourists", he said.) And a very suspect bronze from 350 AD, and a counterfeit 8 Reales (cast lead; really an arm's length fake).
(5) I bought a billon tetradrachma from Alexandria but I haven't attributed it yet. The MSU Library has the Curtis book. This guy either is Zeus Ammon or his ears were deformed.
Sunday March 7 was the Wayne show, just east off I-275. My wife suffered silently while I walked the floor. My only purchase was four Hard Times Tokens: an Illustrious Predessor; a Good For Shinplasters; two different Wall Street Merchant's Tontine; and my favorite: Van Buren\Webster "Metallic Current". I pick up HTT's based only on price and putting these away at the bank, I found that I have enough for a small box, most are Illustrious Predessor; I Take the Reponsibility; Shinplasters; and Metallic Current--my favorite themes from the Jackonsian Era. I wrote to the same dealer and he is holding for me some others including a Loco Foco. The Loco Focos were the Libertarian Party of their day: never winners at the polls but the brains of the successful democratic republicans.
Michael E. Marotta
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