Article on Judean coin auction

MORE ON THAT AUCTION OF ANCIENT JUDEAN COINS from The Forward:

Collectors Bid for Million-Dollar Shekel
Silver Coin from First Revolt Grabs Spotlight at Auction

By Lisa Amand
Published March 27, 2012, issue of March 30, 2012.

It was a single silver shekel that stole the spotlight at a recent New York coin auction. Its gavel price: $1.1 million.

Back in the day, the shekel might have represented four days of a soldier’s pay. But that was 66 C.E., during a bloody and doomed fight to the death by Jewish nationalists against their Roman overlords. On March 9, under the chandeliers and oil portraits of the Fletcher-Sinclair House, on Manhattan’s tony Upper East Side, this piece was just one of a trove of Roman era Judean coins eyed by a mix of numismatists, some in suits with deep pockets and others in jeans, at one of the largest auctions of coins from that era ever held.

This was an auction at which sela’im and zuzim­ — the equivalent of pocket change in Roman times — made a name for themselves. The event, sponsored by Heritage Auctions, a major house for ancient collectibles, also featured 260 silver-and-bronze pieces from the Bar Kokhba Revolt, a later, separate anti-Roman rebellion that broke out in 132 C.E. Several of those pieces fetched record-breaking amounts topping $100,000. Aficionados armed with loupes and credit cards, looking to start or complete a collection, converged on the turn-of-the-century mansion to pore over the bounty.

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