A new solidus: Valentinian I

Great work on the provenance research and great find! There's no better feeling. Glad to see an rnumis success story -- I'm a fan of that site.

 

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Amazing & beautifully curated coins Donna. May I ask, when exactly did you win the 'Lottery'?
Brova,
J.T.

 

I have never won anything in my life

 

I only wish! 5 ancient gold coins purchased in the last year isn't exactly a habit. I hope it doesn't become one!

 

I know DmL,
but what a lovely habit & one, I dare say, you deserve.
For Pete's sake don't feel guilty feeding this historic beast.
Onward,
J.T

 

But/ its a good "habit" to have....

 

Just a general note - The Roma solidus hammered for £950, plus 20% commission. That was a nice example with a good pedigree, but a little on the light side weight-wise.

https://www.romanumismatics.com/295...ype=&sort_by=lot_number&view=lot_detail&year=

 

I do see what you mean, but looking at the two photos together, repeatedly and as carefully as possible, I am pretty sure that the apparent difference is a product of the extreme blurriness of the emperor's left shoulder drapery when the 1966 photo is enlarged, as compared to the clarity of the current photo in color. I think the pattern present on the shoulder as seen in the current photo is actually there in the 1966 photo as well. It's just almost impossible to see. As I've said before, I hope that whenever I receive the hard copy of the old catalog, the photo of that coin is at least a little bit clearer. As I see it now, I'm not even sure that it's a photo of the coin itself rather than a photo of a cast. It's really too bad that the 1966 catalog doesn't give the specimen's weight or diameter.

In my opinion, the top of the "L" in Valentinian's name on the obverse of the old photo is left as the only (seemingly) clear difference between the two photos. So we have a situation in which (1) one specimen of a coin -- the only specimen of that particular variety from that officina known until now, according to Depeyrot and every other source I've consulted -- is sold to an unknown buyer in Paris in 1966 and is not seen on the market thereafter until now; (2) approximately 55 years later, Odysseus Numismatics purchases an old Paris collection formed in the 1950s and 1960s, a collection that includes a coin of that exact same variety from the same officina; (3) comparing photos of the two coins, the reverse is 100% identical in every respect down to the precise flan shape, the flow lines, the design and position of the figures and letters, and, on the reverse figure of the emperor, the partly missing or worn left arm holding Victory; and (4) the obverse is 99% identical in terms of flan shape, flow lines, and the design and positioning of the figures and letters, with the exception of the top part of one single letter.

What are the chances that a second specimen of the same exact variety, 99-100% identical in every respect and closer than a double die match -- a variety previously known from only one example -- would show up in the same city after 55 years when an old collection is sold, and actually not be the same coin? To me, a conclusion that these are two different coins would be far more implausible than a conclusion that they're the same coin, and that there must be some other explanation for the difference in that "L." As I speculated previously, perhaps the length of that part of the "L" is just an optical illusion, and there was a deposit of some kind there that has since been removed. That seems more likely to me than any theory under which these are two different coins. If @Barry Murphy would like to take a look at the photos and contribute any thoughts, I'd certainly appreciate it.

 

I heard back from Julien Cougnard, the proprietor of Odysseus Numismatique. With his permission, this is what he said:

"I don't have the Depeyrot book, but I have the Vinchon 1966 catalog so I looked today and indeed it's absolutely the same coin, there is no doubt. The weird shape of the L could be due to several things : old photographic technique, light, printing... but my best bet would simply be a sticky little dirt that was there when the picture has been taken, and with the uniformity of colors and textures + the "molded look" of vintage coin photography, we can't really distinguish it.

I also knew that the previous owner kept buying few coins in auction houses between the 60s and 80s, so it matches. . . .

I can assure you that it's 100% the same coin, it's obvious when you look at the flan.

Unfortunately we don't see it much better on the Vinchon catalog, due to low print resolution."

I recommend his website, by the way; he sells both ancient coins and ancient Roman intaglios, seals, jewelry, etc. See https://odysseus-numismatique.com/en/. He also sells on MA-Shops. I've bought several items from him besides this solidus.

So I really have no doubts at this point regarding the provenance. It's a good thing I decided to buy a copy of Depeyrot II, based on Sear's reference to it in the RCV catalog entry bearing the closest resemblance to my coin. Little did I know that it would turn out that Depeyrot specifically cites my coin, and its sale at a specific auction in 1966, allowing me to find the provenance.

My updated description, without the footnotes:

Valentinian I, AV Solidus, 365 AD [Sear, Depeyrot] (reigned 364-375 AD), Antioch Mint, 3rd Officina. Obv. Rosette-diademed (with square & round rosettes separated by ovoid pearls), draped, & cuirassed bust right, D N VALENTINI-ANVS P F AVG [Dominus Noster Valentinianus Pius Felix Augustus] / Rev. Valentinian, in military attire, standing facing, head right, holding labarum or vexillum ornamented with “T” [uneven/Tau cross?] in right hand* and, in outstretched left hand, Victory standing left on globe, holding up crowning wreath towards emperor, RESTITVTOR – REIPVBLICAE around; in exergue, ANTΓ [Antioch Mint, 3rd Officina**]. RIC IX (1951) Antioch 2b (var. unlisted) ***; Sear RCV V 19267 at p. 294 (rosette-diademed, with no cross in the reverse left field, no stars or dots in the reverse exergue, and known from Officina 3, as well as Officina 10) (citing Depeyrot); Depeyrot II Antioch 23/1 Valentinian I (p. 281) (examples with this mint-mark, without stars or dots, & monogrammed cross in labarum rather than Chi-Ro, known from Officinas 3 [citing 1966 sale of this coin] & 10) [Depeyrot, George, Les Monnaies d'Or de Constantin II à Zenon (337-491) (Wetteren 1996)]. 21.2 mm., 4.44 g. Purchased from Odysseus Numismatique [Julien Cougnard], Montpellier, France, Feb. 2022, “from an old Parisian collection”; ex. Maison Vinchon Auction Sale, Mon. 25 April 1966, Hotel Drouot, Paris, Lot 257 (sold for 780 French francs, = $159.16 in 1966 U.S. dollars).

So this is now how far back I can document the provenances of my five ancient gold coins: Vespasian (1910), Antoninus Pius (2015), Valentinian I (1966), Arcadius (1960), and Honorius (1998). Certainly further back, on average, than most of my other ancient coins, with a few exceptions like my one 1887 East Harptree Hoard siliqua and my ex. Dattari Collection Phoenix tetradrachm cited in the 1901 Dattari book.

 

And to the things noted by @Spaniard and @Etcherman --

These differences are almost certainly the artifact of photography and, more importantly, the use of plaster casts in the plates. (I.e., it's not a photograph of the coin directly.)

Vinchon made casts of every coin and then photographed them for the plates, as was the custom in European catalogs through at least the 1970s. (American firms favored direct photos of coins from the very beginning, in the 19th century.)

I've found much wider discrepancies between plates of cast-photos and photographs of actual coins before -- this one (i.e., @DonnaML 's) is comparatively very minor.

To demonstrate how far off photographs of casts can be, here are a couple of mine.

I'm just putting this in thumbnails, but if you want to enlarge them, you'll see that the three casts (1931, 1933, 1938) ALL look different from one another and the photo:



This one from BCD Peloponessos that was shown as a cast in Jennifer Warren's die study (“The Autonomous Bronze Coinage of Sicyon (Part 2),” NC, 1984) is about as close as they come, but still shows differences:


I'll just include the full size image for one. This is from the Prowe - Egger III sale (1914) and the CNG EA 493 (2021) photo (after multiple other intervening collections and sales). Again, same coin, but there are differences due to the casting process:

 

Fascinating. Thanks. If the 1966 photo of my coin really is of a cast (I wasn't sure), at least the flan shape was preserved almost exactly. Not really the case with your examples, which I imagine makes it very difficult to confirm a match definitively.

 

Yes, I agree. I think the differences may very well be only in the quality of the photography. Both photos probably show the same coin.

 

Do you happen to have any source for this? I assumed that after WWII the auction catalogs contained photos of the real coins and not plaster casts.

On Donna's coin, it has to be the same coin because of the flan shape and centering. Otherwise one of the coins is a forgery and given there are missing details in the Vinchon coin -including a nick on the edge-, that one is to be suspected. Perhaps there is an earlier passage of the coin in a different auction and that may give us some more information.

And @DonnaML, you should be cautious as not all coins in old auction catalogs are authentic or not tooled...I note that some months ago I posted a few fake sybaris staters that plagued all major French auctions (Bourgey Platt Vinchon) since the early 1900s. Another one appeared in the recent Prunier auction and sold for 4k+

 

I think you're mistaken about the allegedly missing nick on the edge, examining the two photos again and taking the deficiencies of the earlier one into account. Both about its actually being missing and the implications if it were. At this point, standing on one's head to think of reasons it might not be the same coin brings Occam's Razor to mind.

I never said that an old provenance is a guarantee of authenticity. It's just more likely the more expert eyes have evaluated a coin. I am happy to rely on the opinions of Georges Depeyrot and Barry Murphy, as well as M. Cougnard and M. Vinchon. The idea that I would ever find a better photo in an even earlier catalog is extremely improbable, and not something I would go out of my way to try to do.

 

I would like to hear from @Curtis which is his source of information that Vinchon was using plaster casts in the 60s. With plaster casts moving around do you believe it's hard to make a forgery?

I was referring to your statement in the post which started the thread.

I know that I've said elsewhere that I'm reluctant to buy ancient gold without a documented provenance, given the presence of many forgeries -- including several well-known forgeries of Valentinian I solidi​

There are at least one thousand catalogs before WWII with better photography than Vinchon. If the coin is rare you have good chances to find it elsewhere.

 

DonnaML,

Your coin and the Vinchon coin are the same coin. Vinchon was one of the last hold outs still using plaster casts for his illustrations. Any differences are the result of casting imperfections. Glendining also continued making plaster casts for their illustrations into the early 1970’s. It had to be a horribly slow process. I always wondered what happened to all these casts. I’d love to stumble on all the Ars Classica casts.

Barry Murphy

 

Wow! Congrats Donna!!

Personally I think an aureus of Augustus would be an amazing addition but even as it is it’s still very amazing!

I can’t wait to get my first aureus but they’re sooo expensive xD

 

Thank you for this useful information. I guess the casts were destroyed to prevent them from ending up in the wrong hands. Or I hope so...

 

Sorry, didn't see this until now, it's a good question, glad @Barry Murphy chimed in with some great institutional knowledge about Vinchon being one of the last holdouts (didn't know that). I'd also love to know what happened to all the old casts from European auctions.

On the question of fakery, I also figured that fakes from plaster or sulfur casts wouldn't be very effective given that imperfections multiply over each generation of reproduction, and it'd be massively more efficient to use real coins or electrotypes, etc. (as people do). I guess it's probably been done at some point.

I don't know of any biblio of which exact auctions used casts but it would be interesting. I was just basing my opinion on having looked at all the (digitized) plates of that catalog (they "look like" cast photos), and general experience with old catalogs. There are, however, some nice articles about the history of numismatic photography in this period out there. [A couple below from my biblio file.]

John Spring (2009) had enough on his plate I guess, so it'd be unfair to ask for more of him: I did check his wonderful book Ancient Coin Auction Catalogs 1880-1980 (London: Spink); I don't think he specifically mentions cast or type of photography for each catalog (and he apparently missed this Vinchon sale completely).

David Fanning's (2020) excellent book on Ancient Coins in Early American Auctions, 1869-1939 (Gahanna, OH: Kolbe & Fanning) has more discussion of photography (but fewer catalogs annotated). As he notes, American collectors and dealers were always much less willing to accept casts in photography, so the catalogs used photos of coins themselves from the start. I thought that volume was worth buying in hardback (especially since they'll send a signed copy) but it's also available on archive.org above. (He also has an hourlong conference presentation available.)

I also gave some thoughts/annotations on Spring & Fanning and related sources here: cointalk.com/posts/8243266 ; and here (later in same thread): cointalk.com/posts/8243859

Some more on history of numismatic photography/illustration:

Hollard, Dominique (1991) “L'illustration numismatique au XIXe siècle.” Revue Numismatique (Année 1991), 6th Series, Vol. 33: pp. 7-42 & pl. I-III (separate). https://www.persee.fr/doc/numi_0484-8942_1991_num_6_33_1952

Hoover, Oliver D (2012) “Paper, Plaster, Sulfur, Foil: A Brief History of Numismatic Data” ANS Magazine (Spring 2012), pp. 18-26. [.pdf avail on Academia / 28753342]

Kraft, Jesse (2021) “The Acrylic Slides of William Guild.” ANS Magazine (Fall 2021, Issue 3), pp. 28-41. [Not yet online?]

See also CT Threads 382322 & 359252 (Tribute to Leon Dardel & TRIBUTE TO HENRY COHEN). There are also excellent posts on relevant topics at FAC but I don't know the etiquette for linking those here...​

 

M. Cougnard of Odysseus Numismatique has asked me to post this corrected/clarified version of his comment above, with apologies for his English -- which seems fine to me!

"I consulted today the Vinchon 1966 catalog and indeed it's absolutely the same coin, there is no doubt. The weird shape of the L could be due to several things : old photographic technique, light, printing... in this case I think it's just a little dirt that was there when the coin has been cast before taking the picture, and with the uniformity of colors and textures + the "molded aspect" induced by this technique, we can't really distinguish it.

Plaster casts have long been used in numismatic catalogs, such as those of Vinchon and Bourgey until the 70s for example, this allowed to have nice detailed pictures, avoiding metal reflections."

This seems entirely consistent with @Barry Murphy's comment, including in confirming Maison Vinchon's use of plaster casts until very late.