Ancients: NEWP, Maximinus With Interesting Cornucopia

One of the things I appreciate about collecting Roman coins is the seemingly endless engraving varieties. Here's a very common follis of Maximinus, and it's in nice shape to be sure, but what drew my eye to the coin was the fruit in the cornucopia. I'm assuming they're pomegranates. I looked through a dozen or so examples of this type, and didn't come across anything similar. Evidently this was one engraver's little bit of personal detail. (I also haven't collected one of these Head-of-Serapis coins yet, so it crosses a type I've been wanting off the list.)



Does anyone else have interesting engraving variations they'd like to share, that is, not official changes in the coins, but examples that show the artistic license of the die cutters? I realize that makes for a very broad thread topic but hey, it's CT.

 

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I don't have much ancients . I always assume that there are countless varieties for one coin.

Very nice piece btw.

 

Well, yes. Since the dies were engraved by hand, each die will be original. But I'm talking about significant little additions (or perhaps subtractions) that constitute a conscious decision on the part of the engraver to do something out of the ordinary.

 

Super new addition, JA ... I really like the reverse (very cool)

I will try to look through my stash and find an example to post in your interesting thread ...

 

I hope this counts, but I definitely found interesting that they would sometimes use different spellings of certain words/names on Ostrogothic coins, not little changes like AV in place of AVG, for example, but whole words. Since a good portion of the coins I've seen have "misspelled" words, I believe that this may have been intentional to some extent. I figure that, with the less emphasis placed on learning/speaking Latin in the new barbarian kingdoms of western Europe at the time, the die engravers had more freedom to engrave words based probably on how they thought they were spelt. For example, on many Ostrogothic coins (especially the silver), the Latin word for king, "Rex", is spelt as "Rix", and "Imvicta" was sometimes used in place of "Invicta", Latin for unconquerable. King's names on these coins have their spelling variations as well.

First coin (mine): DN ATHALARICVS on the reverse
Second coin: DN ATALARICVS (no H in name)
Both have INVICTA on the obverse





The following coin of mine has IMVICTA ROMA (kind of hard to see in the photo but it is indeed there).

 

Ummm JA, I'm not sure what you were fishin' for, but I found a couple of examples that I think fit your thread theme (hopefully?) ...


How 'bout the craftsman that decided that Serapis would have the world's biggest and coolest lid?!





=> bon chapeau, mon ami

 

Yes, very interesting, VK. It would seem that the different spellings indicate the written language in a state of flux. After all, those legends weren't engraved by people who couldn't spell, as with some barbarous issues. The omission of one letter, and substitution of another show an evolving, or at least varying rubric.

 

That's definitely the biggest modius I've seen on a coin. Super!

 

Ummm, I've got several Antonius Pius coins, but this is the one and only example that I have of

=> "Mister-Good-Times-Kickin'-Back-and-Laughin'-It-Up" Antonius Pius ...

 

Some great coins folks.

I think that this engraver was having fun engraving Genius.

 

i'll go with my "thunder thighs" zeus on a philip iii drachm.....i think it was engraved this way intentionally, but bay be a damaged die (as JA suggested i believe).

 

sweet coins

 

Those sure are interesting looking fruits! The Genius seems a little unusual in style too. Portrait is straight up by the book, though. Cool new addition!

Here's mine for comparison. It's much more typical with the usual tiny blueberry-like fruits.

 

The caduceus being held by Hermanubis in his left hand is the most un-caduceusy looking caduceus I've ever seen...

 

It rather fits. Hermes and Anubis were both conductors of souls to Hades. You would expect him to have some sort of creepy, cultic scepter.

 

Very nice addition JA. I had to look at my version of this coin to see what was coming out of the cornucopiae, but mine is rather indistinct:

 

My die cutter license is a matter that truly changed my life. I refer to the question of whether there were stirrups shown on a few coins of Constantius II long before stirrups were used by the Romans. How it became life changing for me is that it provided me the excuse to upload my very first web page in February 1997.

My friend Victor Failmezger was working on his book on late Roman coins and showed me what he considered evidence of stirrups on some falling horsemen coins from the Antioch mint. What he saw was a dotted line running down the leg of the barbarian horseman. A few coins even showed something going around the foot. The user of this dotted line (a rope or whatever it was) was a tribesman enemy of Rome and some tribes were known to have used stirrups even though they were not known or, perhaps, appreciated by Romans. The theory is that the die cutter might have been a barbarian or might have seen one using a stirrup and put it on the coins he cut. The mint bosses might not even have known what the rope was. Roman that saw people riding with stirrups would not necessarily copied the idea.


I decided to start my web page with two articles. One was to be about Septimius Severus and the other was to be about something 'not Sev':
http://www.forumancientcoins.com/dougsmith/notsev.html

The original idea was to replace each page after a week with a new pair of 'Sev' and 'notSev' pages but, at the last minute I decided not to destroy the first page pair but to add to it. The main reason for doing the pages was to learn to code HTML. There was no demand online for amateur articles on ancient coins.

Since 1997, there have been a lot of studies on the dress and appearance of the falling horsemen. The question of whether or not these coins actually show early stirrups or not will never be answered for sure. I believe they are stirrups. Many high level experts think that is just plain silly. That matters not to me. For this post is suffices to say that these pigtailed riders have dress characteristics including a line of dots running down their legs. You can say it is decorative lace. To me it shows stirrups.

 

Thanks for that page Doug! They're clearly stirrups. Anyone who's been around horses couldn't possibly confuse them with anything else.

 

Here is a cornucopia quite similar to the OP's cornucopia from the same mint, but different emperor.

Perhaps artistic concepts were passed from one engraver to another.

 

Concerning the Genius holding head of Serapis issues I'm curious.

Why do you think the engravers put the modius only on the head of Genius on some coins (as on the OP coin) and put it only on Serapis on some coins and on both heads on other coins?