I am researching a coin of Postumus with a Moneta reverse. Wildwinds has a nice explanation of how to distinguish coins of Postumus from the Lyons mint from those of Cologne. It's at the top of this page: http://www.wildwinds.com/coins/ric/postumus/i.html I did a "Postumus Moneta" search on VCoins and found two coins from Ken Dorney attributed to the Treveri/Trier mint. (Top line of this page: https://www.vcoins.com/en/Search.as...cords=100&SearchOnSale=False&Unassigned=False ) RIC vol. V, no. II, does list any coins of Postumus from Trier. This particular volume dates from 1933. Is this assignment to Trier the result of some new information or discovery? Does anyone recall the argument in favor of coins of Postumus originating from Trier?
I have a Postumus with a MONETA AVG reverse... I was never able to figure out if it was RIC 75 or 315... which are the same but from different mints. Any thoughts on this one? The obverse is a bit out of focus... oops.
PS: $500 for that Romae Aeternae example at vcoins is funny. Oops, looks like the seller accidentally added an extra zero... or...
I believe that RIC is out of date with current thinking. I don't think that there are any coins produced for Postumus at Lugdunum as the mint was not operational at this point.
It's true, RIC is out of date with many things. However, keep in mind that these are all theories (in the cases where we have no recorded documentation on where mints were operating). I am certain someone will likely re-assign mints to other localities in the future, all with convincing new or rehashed data. With my descriptions I try to keep abreast of the latest information, but I am old fashioned in other aspects. I simply will not call a coin a 'nomos'. I will stick to 'stater' thank you very much. There is no compelling evidence to change the designation. I also have a hard time with all the new spellings people have come up with. Substituting 'k' for 'c' and vice versa.
Sondermann claims that all coins minted by Postumus came from the same mint (disregarding those minted by Aureolus in the name of Postumus). Yet that doesn't explain the clear stylistic differences pointed out by Dane on the Wildwinds page. So I'm still confused. The portrait on your coin is different from mine, so yours would be RIC 75. But where is was minted is apparently still open to question.
While I will admit that I agree it is possible that there was only one mint for Postumus, differences of style can be attributed simply to officina or even just the die engravers themselves. There are many different styles of portraiture for Postumus. What does one make of this? Some have called them 'irregular mints', some 'barbarous'. We will never know for certain, but if one wishes to specialize there is ample data to make an argument one way or the other (hoard evidence, distribution, obvious styles, etc). I have no time for that, so I defer to the current attributions.
This is a very short thread I was looking for info on the same subject. One of these coins though now belongs to Sallent the other is part of some hoard coins I bought from JA and will probably always keep. My pics suck but thats nothing new https://www.cointalk.com/threads/i-need-a-little-help-with-an-ae-postumus.286881/
I just read the thread that Smojo linked to above. Apparently the modern thinking is that Trier was the main mint for most of his coins: http://www.forumancientcoins.com/lateromancoinage/gallic/postumus.html Also, at least according to this site, all the Moneta reverses were from the same issue and same officina, which leaves me even more confused, since there is such a great difference between obverse portraits. (BTW, while proofreading this before posting it, I discovered that if you Spoonerize "obverse portraits" it becomes "perverse orbtraits.")
The linked page belongs to Richard Bourne aka Mauseus. If you want more information on the topic, he has a published thesis entitled Aspects of the Relationship between the Central and Gallic Empires in the mid to late Third Century AD. In his thesis (available digitally here) he discusses various theories about the number and locations of Postumus's mints. There's even a few paragraphs regarding this Moneta type that you have: "Around the time of their third series which incorporated the PM TRP IIII COS III PP reverse, or possibly slightly before, they [Besly and Bland] notice a new series of coins, the MONETA AVG, that do not share any dies with either their "officina A" or "officina B" types. The later SAECVLI FELICITAS type also follows suit. From this they suggest that either a new workshop has come on stream or that a totally new mint has been established. Drinkwater suggests that this is a new mint, travelling with the army, established to meet the increasing demands of campaigning. "The idea is seductive, Moneta was used as a reverse design upon the establishment of the Cologne mint a few years later. One must be very cautious about over interpreting the reverse design of Roman coins and recreating history from them." There's more than what I quoted above, but I'll let you read the rest in the thesis. I bought a Moneta reverse earlier this year, too:
Thank you for the link, Zumbly. I just realized that I didn't post a photo of my coin. It has the other portrait type. I'll try to post it later today so that you can see how different they are.
Here's my Postumus coin, Moneta reverse, that started this thread. The style of both sides is very different from the other two posted above. Whether this undermines the theory that all Moneta reverses were from the same issue and the same officina, I can't say, but they surely must have had at least two different celators.
My Postumus: Before: After: RI Postumus 259-268 CE Antoninianus Cologne Providentia And: RI Postumus struck by Aureolus 268 CE Revolt of Milan Concordia
Your coin has a taller and narrower portrait. You do see portraits in this style on various issues, including the Moneta, all commonly attributed to Trier. Postumus struck a massive amount of coinage and would have employed numerous die engravers and mintworkers. Bourne's paper brings up the theories of several authors, including one that suggests the Moneta issue was the product of a separate, 'traveling' mint. Another theory, which I find more convincing, is that it was issued by a third officina, at least initially located at the same mint (Trier), and using existing workers and equipment. Apparently, obverse die links have been found between examples of the Moneta issue and examples from earlier emissions. Bourne brings up the possibility that this third officina may later have been 'spun off' to become the Cologne mint. This would seem to make sense in the context of the rare issues that have Moneta on the reverse, but the legend COL CL AGRIP, for Colonia Claudia Agrippinensium. I'm not sure if I'm being very coherent, but it's all there in the Bourne paper I linked to earlier.
That's a nice cleaning job you did on that first coin, Alegadron. Did you use Verdicare? Zumbly, I'm going to print out that chapter on Gallic Mints and read that first. Will I be lost if I start there?
