Ancients, NEWP: Ant of Tetricus

Here we go ugly photo for an ugly coin. I need to work on this...

 

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Well, that's far more representative of the type. It's rather like collecting the ants of Gallienus. You can cherry pick the nicest coins, but that doesn't tell you much about the general quality of the series (or lack thereof).

 

This one looks barbarous.

 

that was my first thought was well.

 

I agree that it looks barbarous, but from what little I've researched Gallic Empire coins, the line between official and unofficial can get very mushy.

 

"mushy"? Is that a scientific/numismatic term?

 

Well, if you look through listings of coins of the Gallic Emperors, it seems to me that variations in official style can sometimes go out into left field, far enough to look barbarous. It gets tricky to say one way or another. But as I said, I've only begun studying these coins and I may be wrong.

But you're right, "mushy" is too short and colloquial to sound like an official numismatic term. Let's go with gelatinous.

 

"The Gelatinous Demarcation Between Official and Barbarous Emissions of the Gallic Empire"

Somebody should write that book.

 

Wow! That's a great title. I would buy the book just to see what the title meant.

 

if i wrote the book it would be titled..."Check Out These Coins Yo!".

 

" A Complete Numismatic Survey of the Phat Ancient Coins "

It would be like a thousand full color glossy pages of phat ancient coins with little useful information and alot of" Dang look how tough that coin is" or "Goodluck finding one of these"

 

"PAN's Glutinous World of Goat Coins"

 

Good looking coin Big John...

 

Well, I got trounced at CNG today, again -- but I was consoled that this little gem arrived in the mail. Tough to photograph, though - very glossy, and the obverse has an flan anomaly right in front of the bust. So if I light it from that direction, poor little Tetty looks like he has a tumor on his nose. At any rate, here's the full skinny...

Tetricus II, 273-274 AD
Ae Antoninianus, 21mm, 3.4g.
Obv.: C PIV ESV TETRICVS CAES; Radiate, draped bust, seen from behind.
Rev.: SPE-S AVGG; Spes walking left, holding flower and raising robe.
Reference: RIC 270 var (bust seen from behind), but listed as such in Cunetio Hoard 2647, Elmer 791, Appleshaw Hoard 468, Kirkby Hoard 117.



Evidently, the bust-left variety is scarce. I've looked at quite a few examples of this type since I bought the coin, and Spes always looks like she's been drawn by a three-year-old. Since she's the goddess of hope, maybe this can be my lucky charm. I think the seller's image is better than mine, but my pic shows the true color - a warm, chocolate brown - looks like you could eat it.

 

That is the Tetricus II. of my desire!
Thank you for uploading your own image.

 

Anomaly or not, I believe you need to get more light on the face. Perhaps it would not look quite so bad if you lowered the overall contrast on the image with front face light??? Is that anomaly a die clash?

 

Maybe, one can easily clean this coins from the deposits. I would try first try at an inconspicuous spot close to the rim before riding the eye zone.

 

Ok, well...here's a shot with more light at the front of the bust. Die clash? Very possibly - it's the raised area in front of the forehead and nose. As far as cleaning goes, it might be worth a try removing the deposits on the reverse. The obverse is clean enough in my opinion.

 

The eyes are completely clean?

 

Yes, the eye is clean. Here's another take on the coin, with very oblique lighting. This is closer to the seller's image. But at this angle, the true color of the coin is completely washed out. We all have coins like this, that take on very different aspects under differing light schemes.

On closer examination I do believe the coin exhibits clashed dies. Look at the area around the flower on the reverse as well...