(Imitative?) Caracalla? Elagabalus? Provincial Help Needed

I saw this bizarrely-rendered coin at auction today and I had to buy it. It's very crude in its inscriptions, with upside down letters and misspellings, and in its portrait. I think it's of a young Caracalla or Elagabalus and from Hadrianopolis (Thrace) or Hadrianopolis Sebaste (Phrygia).

I'd be grateful if anyone can find a reference for this coin or otherwise help me identify it further. Thanks!


Caracalla, AD 198-217.
Roman provincial Æ 21.7 mm, 5.81 g, 6 h.
Hadrianopolis-Sebaste; Poteitos, archon, AD 198-209.
Obv: M AV ANTƱNЄI, laureate and cuirassed bust, right.
Rev: ΑΔΡΙΑ APX ΠOTЄITO, Tyche standing, left, wearing kalathos, holding rudder set on globe and cornucopiae.
Refs: BMC 25.225,4 var.; SNG Cop 407 (same obv. die); Lindgren 959 var.; Babelon IW 6069.

Interestingly, there is some precedent for the upside down omegas in the inscription. See this Commodus provincial of Alexandria, RPC IV.4, 16005 (temporary), which reads Μ ΑVΡΗ ΚΟΜΜ ΑΝΤƱΝΙΝΟϹ Ϲ.



Compare the coin to this one of Julia Domna:

 

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No clue here, @Roman Collector, but this is inherently fascinating. Your example of Alexandria is even odder, since that level of blundering is coming out of Alexandria, of all places. Surely, for Roman provincial, there was a spectrum, from one city to the next, where die engraving was concerned. Is there any likelihood that one or either of these could be 'barbarous'?

 

I edited my OP to reflect a similar coin of Julia Domna from Hadrianopolis in Phrygia. It may be official. Bizarre, though.

 

Interesting ... I found the coin -- not a die match, though (and it has a radiate bust), with very similar inscriptions. It appears to be described for Geta and Domna, but not for Caracalla. From Münzen & Medaillen GmbH, Auction 22, lot 1283, 24 May, 2007, a 5.53 gram specimen:


The auction firm notes the following references: SNG München vgl. 214 (Geta, Rv. gleich). SNG Tübingen vgl. 4017 (Geta, Rv. gleich). IW 6069.

Anyone know what "IW" refers to?

 

Eureka!!! Here it is in BMC Phrygia, p. 225, no 4! It is possibly a double die-match, too, because the upside down omega is there, as are the exact breaks in the inscription on the reverse!



I found several other examples at acsearchinfo. It appears to be SNG Copenhagen 407 (same obverse die).

 

Wow. And that many of them are as crude as that, effectively ruling out something as easy as 'barbarous' imitations. I had no idea that Roman provincial reached this pitch of crudity, Anywhere.
...So in the case of your Alexandrian one, could one provisionally write that off to the die engraver having a bad day?

 

I'm not so sure it wasn't an accepted form of writing the letter omega.

 

...See? That's how good you are!!! Never occurred to me once to consider that as a possibility.

 

..kool RC!..the 1st lQQks to be imitative of my Markinopolis Caracalla..kinda

 

If the dies for a provincial coin were produced locally, there would be a limited pool of die engravers available. Much like the "barbarous" work of unofficial mints, they were doing the best they could.

Portraits are one thing but think about engraving legends by hand into a die. Each letter has to be engraved backwards while the legend itself must read in reverse. Some of these craftsmen may have only semi-literate.

 

What I can't fathom is why anyone would accept a coin in commerce that has virtually no intrinsic value and does not look like it came from a government mint that would give it fiduciary value. Not only is there a problem of who made it but who would accept it.

 

Thanks, @dltsrq, for effectively answering my no less implicit question. I was wondering about the demographics of the die engravers. It's intuitive --now that you mention it, that is-- that, especially in smaller towns, 'provincial' in the more prevalent sense, literacy levels would be less than reliable, even among craftsmen at this level.

 

I give up.

 

Thank you for your insights about the paleography, Doug.

I was wondering about the IW in "IW 6069," the reference cited by Münzen & Medaillen in their description of a similar coin. It's apparently the abbreviation of a book or article.

 

It's Babelon's Inventaire sommaire de la collection Waddington, available online. Here's IW 6069 from page 358: