Featured A Bastien Intermediate follis (plus a discussion of early London mint coinage)

I agree with your skepticism Stuart. Could someone verify that in RIC VI please? (It will save me having to struggle to retrieve my copy from my bookshelf - thanks).

 

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BTW, I gifted my copy of the Cloke & Toone book and so I cannot “fact check“ information there either.

 

Here you go jamesicus. The 'standard' unmarked / Invasion coins for each of the Augusti and Caesar's rated as Common, with legend and bust variants scarcer. BTW does anyone else struggle with the logic of how Sutherland organised the numbering in Volume VI of RIC, eg. regarding the use of letters and numbers or is it just me ?

 

Here's my only other Invasion coin, Constantius, Lugdunum RIC 17 a. I always thought it was just poorly preserved, but perhaps it is more a result of a hastily prepared emergency coinage? @thejewk, regarding your observation of there not being many on the Auction archives, that's pleasing to hear! I may have been lucky - both my Invasion coins came from an old bulk lot from a 1990s London auction with lots of other ordinary condition Genio Popvuli coins - it may be that they often haven't warranted separate cataloguing because of the condition?

 

Thank you very much @Kiaora. I am a little surprised. It has been some time since I checked the cataloging of this series. I have struggled for years with Sutherland’s Vol. VI cataloging of the London mint coinage in general. I find it hard to follow at times. It is not just you!

 

Very interesting information @Kiaora - thanks for posting it (and the pic). Here’s my RIC 17a:



I didn’t post this to “show off”, it just happens to be the nicest Invasion coin I own.

 

And a very nice one it is, thanks for sharing!

 

And here, as a companion, is the earliest London mint coin of Severus II as Caesar of the west:


RIC VI, Londinium, No. 59a - Severus as Caesar of the west (earliest titulature):

SEVERVS NOBILISSIMVS CAES ........................... GENIO POPV -- LI ROMANI

 

Great post @jamesicus and great coins all!

 

Thank you, Randy, old friend.

 

I think the fact that the coins are difficult to search for might muddy the waters somewhat, and like the later unmarked coins of Galerius with Maximian's legends, I imagine they are often misattributed.

It wouldn't be the first time that a RIC rarity rating turned out to be nonsense on stilts. It's a real shame Cooke and Toone chose not to start their catalogue with the invasion coins and include the numbers for them in the collections they consulted.

 

I think the cataloging of the Invasion coinage in RIC VI is a mess! I have a suspicion that numerous extant Invasion coins and early London mint coins are misattributed.

 

I don’t know how familiar you are with the Romano/British coin collection of Dr. Stoffel Vogelaar, Stuart. If you haven’t already read it, you should visit Lee Toone’s page ……………

http://www.hookmoor.com/home/wp-content/uploads/2011/08/Vogelaar-Celator-Article-v2-lo-lo-res.pdf

…………… and you will learn just about everything you need to know about Dr. Vogelaar and his amazing early Romano/British coin collection.

I never met him, but I did have a brief email exchange with him, mostly relating to the Invasion, LON marked and Bastien Intermediate coins (?) that he was consigning to Spink for Auction at that time. As Lee mentions, Dr. Vogelaar never did formally Catalog or write a book about his enormous collection - he just liked to collect and study those coins.

He had broken up his collection and had consigned some groups to CNG for Auction. Now he was doing the same with Spink. I had no personal involvement with his Auction transactions nor did I want to have one - it was none of my business.

I had written him first to point out some miss-attribution errors he might have made for his coin descriptions so he could correct them.

He thanked me and we had a few back and forth discussions about the coinage we both loved so much - I guess he sensed that I was just an enthusiastic collector like himself with no real business interest - and also no real business acumen, again, just like himself!

He asked me if I was interested in buying (at a good price) any of the remaining coins he hadn’t yet consigned to Auction. I was tempted, for he still had several choice coins (originally he had quite a few LON marked folles!). But my coin purchase budget was almost depleted at the time and I declined his offer (great mistake in hindsight!).

Why this rambling post, Stuart? Well I would like to suggest you access the archived Auction listings of Spink and CNG relating to Stoffel Vogelaar (refer to the Lee Toone article via the link I have provided) and see if you can mine some useful information about early London mint coinage in general and LON marked coins in particular.

 

@jamesicus That's an excellent suggestion! When I first started reading about Roman Britain with any serious intent towards the end of last year, I discovered that interview on the Hookmoor site, but it hadn't occurred to me to search the auction records for his inventory. I shall do that this coming week and see what comes up.

 

You mean like this one:


RIC VI, London, follis, No. 42, Galerius Maximian, Augustus of the East

Obv: IMP C MAXIMIANVS PF AVG
Rev: GENIO POPV -- LI ROMANI

Note: Identical obverse inscription to the primary one of Maximian Herculius. The portrait alone identifies it as Galerius.

 

I have added a thumbnail as a header on the first page. If you click on it, you can preview the Bastien Intermediate coin to be discussed full size. Just “X” it off when finished viewing.

 

I think it is the time to return to the early London mint issue coinage.

Overview

Group I, c. 297 - 1 May 305: The coinage of the first Tetrarchy.

RIC Volume VI, Londinium, Group I, (i), folles, No 1 - 5 , c. 297,were the first folles produced at the London mint under the auspices of Constantius. They featured truncated bare neck, laureate busts, and strong, right facing portraits. The inscriptional lettering was London style small, thick and compact. The reverse depicted a personification of the genius of the Roman people and was marked LON in the exergue. (11.0 - 9.5 gm).

No. 1a, Diocletian, Augustus of the East:


IMP C DIOCLETIANVS P F AVG ..................... GENIO POPV - LI ROMANI
LON (exergue)

Plate coin (Pl. 1)

 

RIC Volume VI, Londinium, Group I, (ii), folles, Class II, (a), No. 6 - 16, c. 300 onward, Laureate bust, right, cuirassed - small head on a tall neck. (11.0 - 9.5 gm).

No. 6a, Diocletian, Augustus of the East:


IMP C DIOCLETIANVS PF AVG .................... GENIO POPV -- LI ROMANI

Laureate, cuirassed, bust facing right
From here on the laurel ribbon ties were secured behing the head.
Unmarked - no LON in reverse exergue - all future folles up to the summer of 307 were unmarked.

 

RIC Volume VI, Londinium, Group I, (ii), folles, Class II, (b), No. 17-22, c. 300 onward, larger, laureate elongated head on shorter neck (10.8 - 9.0 gm).

No. 17 - Maximian Herculius, Augustus of the west:


IMP C MAXIMIANVS P F AVG ...................... GENIO POPV -- LI ROMANI

Laureate, cuirassed, bust facing right

 

RIC Volume VI, Londinium, Group I, folles, Class III , No. 23 - 39, c. 303 onward, Large, spread bust, almost always cuirassed, sometimes ornamented, in low relief (10.6 - 9.0 gm).


No. 33 - Galerius Maximian, Caesar of the East:


MAXIMIANVS NOBIL C ………………..…….……… GENIO POPV - LI ROMANI

Laureate, cuirassed, bust facing right