Ancients, NEWP: AE25, Septimius Severus, Marcianopolis

I'm not sure why this coin went completely ignored, but I just snagged it for 17 bucks. The surfaces are a bit rough to be sure, but not anywhere near as bad as they get on provincials. I thought the style of the bust, the complete legends, and the detail in Homonoia were sufficiently strong enough to outweigh the surfaces, so I put in a modest bid, evidently while everyone else went to supper. 25mm, 7.8g, seller's pic, but I'll post mine as soon as it arrives. Now to go look it up in Varbanov...

 

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Looks like Varbanov 776. The reverse inscription confuses me. Varbanov cites it as Y 1 +AYCTINIANOY MAPKIANOΠOΛIT. This is obviously issued under the consular legate Julius Faustinianus, but what do "Y 1" and the plus sign mean?

 

Sep-Sev? .... really?

That's awesome ... I figured that you'd be posting one of those off-center posts about a Nabobean Queen or something like that?



Just jokes, my friend ...

=> fantastic new Sep-Sev addition!!

 

Nice and only $17. Congrats!

 

Very nice... and for 17 bucks it looks even nicer!

 

See
http://akropoliscoins.com/page8.html

Most start with Vpi or "by the legate" but I do not know what this legate used VI instead. What you see as a + was the phi starting the name. Often this letter is smaller than I'd like almost looking like a divided by sign on its side or a plus.

 

nice JA, you some sweet, sharp details there..rough surfaces or no. SUPER bargain bin score!

 

I like it, awesome coin for $17...

 

Good pickup, anytime you can get an ancient coin with that much detail for that price is sweet.

 

I knew you would steer me in the right direction, thank you! I did not see + on this coin - I merely copied Varbanov's rendition of the inscription. Evidently he uses the symbol in place of Φ precisely because of the way it appears, which is confusing. If we know it's phi, why not just write Φ? If he's notating phi according to how it looks on the coin, why does he then notate upsilon as Y, instead of V? - as it actually appears on the coins, and as it actually appears so often in the provincial Roman/Greek mishmash alphabet.

I don't expect any real answer to this, just thinking out loud, but it does clarify a quirk in Varbanov's volumes that's mystified me from time to time.

 

The V or Y matter is made worsened by the fact that the people who used these letters originally did not always write upsilon the same way. For that matter, they had variations on most letters just like we do. After all, just how many fonts do you have on your computer and how many of them do you recognize? Do not expect more consistency from them than you do of yourself.

Below is a coin of Julia Domna (spelled Ioulia) with an upsilon looking like a Y.

Other common ones are R for B and H for A.

 

Nice!

 

Can someone point me in the right direction to acquire Varbonov reference works?

 

This guy's offering all three volumes for $280.

eBay