Gasoline Alley by Jim Scancarelli for June 30, 2016

Steak jokes while Rome burns!

Three guesses who will behind the counter when Skeezix goes to sell that coin…

Lou, I was thinking just the same thing.

But hurry up: Don’t be like Nero, who sat on his hands and fiddled while Rome burned.

Of course, a genuine Roman coin from that era would not actually say “64 A. D.” as the Roman’s weren’t using the Christian calendar at the time.

The only thing rare in this strip is an original joke !

The thing about Roman coins is that they made a lot of them, and most of them aren’t particularly valuable. I knew a girl when I was at college who had been on an archaeological dig in England for the summer. One day they found a Roman coin. It wasn’t a significant find but it was worth enough for them to get a drink at the local pub. Then again finding a broken shard of pottery was probably enough to justify a drink at the local pub.

OK, first of all, in 64 A.D., Christianity wasn’t strong enough to begin a calendar with the year based on the birth of Christ. That came centuries later, and Christians “imposed” the early A.D. years retroactively.

Also, it is unlikely a clerk would have accepted that coin, since it is not recognizable as a U.S. or Canadian penny, nickle, dime, quarter, half, or dollar.

Well, assuming the colorists haven’t made a mess of it, that would appear to be a gold aureus, probably worth somewhere between $20,000 and $200,000 at auction today.