Caracalla

I bought this one about 8 years ago as well and I still am pleased to own it.
AD 198-217
AR Denarius, 20mm, 3.2 g, 6h
Rome Mint, AD 199
Obv.: ANTONINVS AVGVSTVS
Laureate, draped, cuirassed bust right
Rev.: PONT TR P II
Securitas seated right, holding scepter in left hand, propping head with right, altar in front

 

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One of my favorites bought many years ago:

 

Very nice!

 

Nice example @Collecting Nut
Here is a Caracalla I purchased earlier this year
CARACALLA AR Denarius. Victoria - VICT PART MAX.
Obverse: ANTONINVS PIVS AVG. Laureate, draped and cuirassed bust to right.
Reverse: VICT PART MAX. Victory advancing left, holding palm and wreath.
A good example of this interesting coin, celebrating the roman victory over the Parthian empire during the reign of Septimius Severus.
RIC IV-1 144a. RSC 660. Rome mint, A.D. 204. 3,2 g - 18 mm.

 

Nice looking!

 

Beautiful! Many Severan and other denarii were offered in higher grades on eBay and elsewhere in the early 2000’s. I had started a collection but later sold it all to focus on large bronzes which is my obsession.

One of the biggest eBay sellers was Ancient Auction House - Eastern European owner - Dmitri? Very nice guy. The prices would be incredibly low by today’s standards - I still have one of the last coins he sold before closing up after over 20,000 likes - a late Septimius Severus sestertius which cost under $150. I have many of his offering pages in loose leaf notebooks.

Those were the days - but with three young children and bills to pay my budget for coins was quite limited. Bad timing!!

 

very nice AR, @Collecting Nut , congrats!

Here is one of mine, a little harder to find.

CARACALLA

RI Caracalla 198-217 AR Quinarius CE 213 1.3g 13.6mm Laureate - Victory Wreath Palm RIC IV 101 RSC 450 R

 

Beautiful - this type of portrait is my favorite among Caracalla. I have an extremely rare sestertius from this period and with this style of portrait but it is quite worn. I have only heard of one other example - it has Rector Orbis on the reverse. I should post it again. The grade of your piece shows the beauty of the portait. Reverse is stunning as well.

 

What year was it that you scored one of his last coins from AAH? I also have some from him from the good ol' days but don't know the purchase year/s.

 

Young Caracalla, AR denarius.
Rev.: INDVLGENTIA AVGG / IN CARTH(aginem), Juno Caelestis holding sceptre and thunderbolt riding lion jumping right, over water stream

 

Here's mine

 

It must have been about 2012 - but that's a guess. I used to print out his ebay photos and descriptions and have notebooks filled with them. The last thing I bought was a Septimius Severus sestertius -he closed up shop a few months later. Dmitri - I forget the last name

 

Picked this one up yesterday locally. Lucius Septimius Bassianus was probably more interesting to me and frightening than all of the other well-known Roman psychopathic emperors. But also did a lot of actual work and built things. Just don't mention the name Geta or everyone dies.

Caracalla
AR Denarius Rome 208 AD
Obv. ANTONINVS PIVS AVG
Rev. LIBERALITAS AVG VI - Liberalitas standing left holding coin counter & cornucopiae.
RIC 158, Cohen 128
3.21g, 18mm

 

Well he built the baths of Caracalla. Went to the second largest city of the empire - Alexandria - and slaughtered the youth and semi sacked the city. However, the mint of Rome, in my opinion anyway, produced some of the most beautiful coins in the imperial series. His antoninianii are just gorgeous and so are his denari. And of course, his sestertii. I guess you could argue that he wasn't the worst of the youthful emperors - Caligula, Nero, Commodus, Elagabalus, Severus Alexander, Gordian III and Caracalla - did I miss any -leaving out the later ones. I like the story in Dio about Caracalla always wanting to look fierce - you see that on his later statuary and on the coins once Geta was assassinated.

Speaking of Caracalla, it was painful to watch Gladiator II. I understand Hollywood has to take liberties with history - they did it with Gladiator I but stayed close enough to make it watchable, plus the spirit was there or how I imagined it to be. Plus Russell Crowe was...Russell Crowe. But history was so altered in Gladiator II that it should have had the same intro as Star Wars - "long ago in a galaxy far far away." The movie was so bad it was like satire - naming Caracalla as such? The brothers getting along - the scream for "Praetorians!" at one point was funny. The fight scenes were silly, the plot was utterly absurd, the dialogue was written so poorly that I admired the actors for pulling it off with a straight face. You wonder with all of those resources how they could have made such an utterly inane film - and not because of the historical inaccuracies, the movie was just bad.

 

I can check - I think it was the early teens - he said he lost his supply. He had a shop in Florida. Some of the coins he had were stunning - you could buy a perfect Balbinus or Pupineus (sp?) antoninianus for under $300. Of course I could not afford it then but I did buy many coins from him - most were later sold as my collecting interest went elsewhere. But between him and the other Eastern European sellers ebay was rocking. Even CNG sold coins on ebay at one time. Then the eastern European supply dried up, ebay stopped policing ancients, and many of the collectors also seemed to fade away. I have no doubt that there are only a fraction of the number of collectors as in the oughts - even with the internet widening the ability to buy coins. It was quite exciting back then....but by 2010 it was really over - at least according to my perception of what was going on.

 

I have always thought that the Rome mint coins of Septimius Severus and family were among the most beautiful in the imperial series during a period in which I thought that the Roman meant was at its height, in terms of the beauty of the coins. Unfortunately, the mint of Rome had stopped striking bronze points during this period except for presentation pieces. The good news, however, is that there was an explosion of provincial coinage much of it quite beautiful.

Sorry but I posted this before proof reading when I was interrupted but now have it corrected.

 

In looking at the denarii posted on this thread, I am impressed with how the mint was able to get the centering perfect on many of the coins - a big change from Commodus where are the standard at the mint in terms of the flans and toward the end of the reign the portraiture was uneven at best. But of course, there is nothing like the medallions of Commodus.

 

Thanks for the correction. Sometimes I catch it and other times I don’t. I’d swear it autocorrects after I’ve posted and moved on to another thread.

 

I like how the celator did not care that the reverse figure intruded into the area of the inscription - I have a sestertius of Hadrian where this happens and the look is quite nice. I will post it if I have time.