Being a specialist provides you with the skills needed to pick out overlooked rarities within your area of expertise. Such is the case with my latest coin which was erroneously misattributed as a common Judaea Capta type from Rome - it is not. Vespasian Æ Sestertius, 25.45g Lyon mint, 71 AD Obv: IMP CAES VESPASIAN AVG P M TR P P P COS III; Head of Vespasian, laureate, r.; globe at point of bust Rev: IVDAEA CAPTA; S C in exergue; Palm tree; to l., Vespasian stg. r. with spear and parazonium, foot on helmet; to r., Judaea std. r. on cuirass RIC 1134 (R). BMC 800. BNC -. Hendin 1543. Acquired from Praefectus Coins, March 2022. Ex Roma 83, 6 May 2021, lot 622. In 70 AD Jerusalem was besieged and sacked and the Temple razed by the Roman forces commanded by Titus Caesar. The following year a massive joint Triumph was held in Rome for Vespasian and Titus to celebrate their successful conclusion of the Jewish Rebellion. Coins were also issued to commemorate their victory. These so called 'Judaea Capta' coins first appeared in late 70 just after the fall of Jerusalem in August, both in the precious metals and at first sparingly in bronze. The overwhelming majority of these coins were produced in Rome, but many provincial imperial mints also contributed to the mass media onslaught of 'Judaea Capta'. This rare sestertius from 71 struck in Lugdunum (modern Lyon) copies the iconic Rome mint proto-type of Vespasian proudly standing holding a spear and parazonium (a ceremonial triangular sword) with his foot on an enemy helmet, while Judaea is sitting on a captured cuirass in abject despair - take note of their size discrepancy. Modern viewers see this as a forlorn scene of defeat, however, to the Roman coin designers the images are meant to convey victory over a worthy foe. The Jewish War was an important event for the fledgling Flavian dynasty - in essence it gave them the legitimacy to rule. The ensuing avalanche of propaganda after the 'Gotterdammerung' fall of Jerusalem is awe inspiring. The slight of hand the Flavian regime pulled off which transformed defeated rebel provincials into a foreign menace is truly amazing. The coins were a major part of the regime's propaganda commemorating Vespasian's defeat of the Jews and saving the empire. Their efforts paid off, for even today this 'Judaea Capta' type is one of the most iconic and recognised reverses in the whole of Roman coinage. The Lugdunese variant of this iconic type is much rarer than the contemporaneous Rome mint equivalent. Lugdunum faithfully copied both the Rome mint legend and reverse design. They can be identified by the unique portrait style (squarish heads, prominent shoulders) and blocky, heavily serifed legends. In trade they are often confused with the much more common Rome variant. Missing from the Paris collection. Post your misattributed beauties!
Great cherry-pick, @David Atherton! It's always satisfying to acquire a rarity that was unappreciated or misattributed. I've picked up some real rarities this way, many of which I've posted before in similar threads, so I'll spare you my Faustina cherry picking tales! Here's a tale of the NOT Faustina! This obscure provincial of Plautilla was sold at auction as "Faustina II," apparently because the person writing the catalog description thought every empress with her hair in a chignon is Faustina! Plautilla, AD 202-205. Roman provincial Æ 20 mm, 4.1 g. Phrygia, Otrus, AD 202-205. Obv: ΦOVΛ ΠΛ-AVTIΛΛAC, bare-headed and draped bust, right. Rev: OTP-O-HNΩN, Demeter standing left, holding grain ears and long torch. Refs: BMC 25.344,7; Von Aulock Phrygiens, 802-8; cf. SNG Cop 633.
Hello David, That is a fantastic coin. Obtaining such a nice rarity through your expert knowledge is something that I personally find gratifying when I manage it myself (it doesn't happen that often). I have a soft spot for the Lugdunese style and whilst I dabbled with Lugdunese Flavians in my early collecting time have narrowed my collection away from them. I can still appreciate the appeal of the style of mint apparent in this coin and the fact that it is a desirable IVDEA CAPTA type that is even scarcer from this mint just adds to the thrill of the find. Congratulations. I do have a coin that is winging it's way to me as we speak that is also from Lugdunum and one that is of particular interest to my current collecting focus and was also misattributed. I will wait for this to arrive before posting it as, whilst I am not superstitious, I do not want to anger the postal gods by posting it before it is in hand. I do have the following misattributed coin that is the root of some of the cause to my focus on the eastern denarii of Septimius Severus. Septimius Severus denarius Obv:– IMP CA L SE SEV PER AG COS II, Laureate head right Rev:– FORT REDVC, Fortuna standing left, holding long scepter & cornucopia Minted in Emesa, A.D. 194 References:– RIC -. BMCRE -. RSC -. 3.17g, 18.54mm, 0o This coin was sold to me as a Barbarous imitation due to the partially blundered obverse legends. I felt that the style was good and had seen an obverse die match on Doug Smiths @dougsmit pages on this coinage so was willing to take a punt especially as the coin was cheap. It sparked an interest in the entire series for me which has led to my current collection/obsession. One of my sub-collections in this series relets specifically to these unusual, shortened obverse legends and I have 6 examples from this obverse die alone. Only two of the coins above was correctly identified by the sellers.
I’ll add my own Flavian pick up. On the surface, this appears to be a rather run down run of the mill Judaea capta quadrans, RIC 351, and was sold to me as such. It is actually the much rarer RIC 350 where the reverse is a “caduceus’. RIC 350 is itself a phantom type as the reverse is actually an Aquila not a caduceus as pointed out in this recent Leu example, w19, 2576 (a double die match for mine and the RiC plate coin).https://www.numisbids.com/n.php?p=lot&sid=5446&lot=2576 My example cost me a small fraction of the Leu hammer price. Oddities like this make collecting fun!
The following unpublished (?) type was not misattributed, but entirely missed an exact attribution as usual with Savoca Blue Auctions (which makes them a lot of fun to go through): Vespasianus, medium-small AE (21 mm, 4.08 g), uncertain mint (Ephesus?), 77-78 AD. Obv. [IMP CAESAR VE]SPASIAN AVGVST, head of Vespasianus, laureate, l. Rev. [PON MAX TR] P P P COS VIII CENS / S - C, Victory adv. l., with shield (SPQR inscribed). RIC 1507 (R2) var. (head left). RPC II 1477 var. (head left).
I works the other way also. In fact, some sellers make the assumption that anything hard to ID properly must be the expensive one. The obverse of this AE28 of Diocaesarea, Cilicia, clearly reads ANNIA ΦAVCTINA but the portrait should have made it obvious that we were dealing with the first lady of that name whom we call Faustina II but could just as well been labeled Annia Faustina (since that was her name) potentially making her great granddaughter (the more expensive wife of Elagabalus) "Annia Faustina II". I bought this one in 1998 correctly identified but I have seen the type since 'upgraded' through misidentification based on the 1993 catalog of the French National Collection. The correct ID is now universal with the sort of dealers we all should be favoring but you may find the mistake still from the flea market crowd and dreamers. Note several listings from acsearch that includes reference to the incorrect ID "SNG BN 874-5 (as Annia Faustina)". I find it interesting that a few of these dealers quote the reference but omit mention of the error. https://www.acsearch.info/search.ht...de=1&fr=1&it=1&es=1&ot=1¤cy=usd&order=0 Does anyone have this book and could check what the Cilicia volume says about the coin? https://bid.numislit.com/lots/view/1-1JZV4J/sng-france-2-5 The history of numismatics is filled with misattributions some of which leave us today just wondering what they were thinking. Poster child for this sort of thing has to be the medieval belief that the coins of Rhodes with radiate head of Helios depicted Christ wearing a crown of thorns. I wonder which of our current theories will seem hilarious to scholars of the next century.
David, Congrats, that's a very attractive sestertius ! This coin was advertised as "Overstruck on an uncertain undertype", actually it's a flip-over double strike .
Great Judaea Capta Sestertius! I recently posted this one (AE As), sort of the reverse situation. CNG had it attributed as the Lyon mint, 79 CE (COS VIII / IVDAEA CAPTA), RIC II 1233; Lyon 91; Hendin GBC 6, 6593. But I believe it was the earlier Rome, 71 CE issue (COS III / spelled IVDEA), RIC (II.1) 305; Hendin (GBC 5) 1554 (b). Prior to that Mark Salton-Schlessinger had it as a Dupondius (c. 1957). The following one was misidentified by Roma numismatics when Orfew bought it (which you've seen and commented on then, David), given the wrong RIC number (105, should be RIC 103) for the male and female captives in different positions. This one was potentially also "misinterpreted" by the prior collector, Shlomo Moussaief, who seems to have included it in his "Judaea Capta" collection (that was the focus of his Flavians, anyway, and a major collecting interest of his). Personally I find the evidence much more compelling that this is a Britannia / Caledonia issue, being an IMP XV issue (Cassius Dio, LXVI, 20, 3: "As a result of these events in Britain Titus received the title of imperator for the fifteenth time"). Of course, the coin could have celebrated prior events, just seems less likely. I've also posted these two Alexander the Great types before, both of which were misattributed as something more common by the same auctioneer in different auctions. A rare Price 2712 type and a hemidrachm (difficult denomination).
This whole section from Ephesus seems to be much more extensive than reported in RIC. I have both 1507 without SC, and 1508 with bust left. So with your 1507 bust left, that makes at least 3 new types/varieties. With two legend varieties of bust left, AVG vs AVGVST, there are probably more die combinations. One might also expect more bust left varieties with 1509 and 1510, although as types these appear much rarer than the victory types.
