A 180 Obverse Double Strike

Interesting discussion. Here is a reverse brockage, the first I found - I have four or five Roman obverse brockages. What happened to this coin?



Tetrarchy, follis Heraclea, about 297? Obv. Reverse incusum. Rev. Genius standing left, holding patera and cornucopia. GENIO POPVLI ROMANI// HTA. 26 / 30 mm, 10.22 gr.

A problem is that coins with this reverse were issued by all four emperors of the Tetrarchy: Diocletian, Maximian, Constantius Chlorus and Galerius. Is there any way to find out which emperor or caesar was responsible for this coin?

 

Log in or Sign up to hide this ad.

A 180° double strike is much easier to see if it is combined with a sideways shift. Here you can read on the second strike "TIVS A" which shows the it is a sideways shift plus a 180° rotation. Without rotation it would be "CONST".



Constantius II
Heraclea Mint
Obv.: CONSTANTIVS AVG, bust right
Rev.: GLORIA EXERCITVS / SMHΓ, two soldiers standing facing, flanking standard in center
Ae, 1.8g, 14mm
180° double struck
RIC VIII, 19

 

I don't think so. On some issues certain officina struck for one ruler and others for others so you could make an educated guess. RIC lists these as a free for all.

One way of guessing which die was on top is to see whether you have obverse of reverse brockages since the standard theory is that the coin stuck in the top die. There are some rulers that I am sure struck some coins in both ways and some coins were made with pincher dies which might allow either (more likely neither) brockage. I believe it is important in every case to remember that the mints of antiquity were not required to follow rules invented by scholars and hobbyists of today. We have to allow for exceptions.

 

A nice 180 side-swipe. I am trying to image how that happens - one guy hitting flan after flan while the second guy is a little slow pulling away the finished coin?

An interesting coin @Pellinore thanks for sharing - I think the default answers to "what happened" are: there was a coin stuck in the upper die, or someone wasn't paying attention and put a blank flan on top of an already struck coin.

Regarding how to figure out the obverse, you got me thinking about ways to theoretically narrow down the obverse:

• unfortunately reading @dougsmit's note - narrowing down by mint and officina doesn't work in this case
• if you found by some luck a die match for your reverse, I'm not sure it would be definitive - I don't know how probable it is that the same reverse would have been used with multiple emperors

Enjoying the ambiguity sounds like a good option to me - it's a great coin.

 

Seems like having multiple reverse dies would be more efficient. Strike a coin, then move to the next die while the other worker removes the coin and adds a blank flan.

 

“DI DN MAG MIXIMVS PF AVG” slight rotation of the obverse die resulted in the curious spelling