Gallienus: Mint State or not even VF?

Lately I have been gathering more and more coins of Gallienus who has some interesting types. This one came today and made a point that makes me wonder if I should be more selective. I bought the coin from an image so I knew full well the situation but I have to wonder if the reason I won it is the competition realized that mint state is not necessarily a high grade.



The coin has a reverse showing Luna as bringer of light (Lucifera) wearing a crescent moon on her head, carrying a torch and wearing billowing drapery. The billows are optional on this type. The coin is pretty fully silvered and has a number of hard spots, mostly brown or dark green, of raised patina on top of the silvering. These show much more plainly under magnification so I'll show a small section of the reverse image above cropped but not reduced. This is not a close up photo so it could be sharper but will suffice for the point it makes. These firmly attached but raised spots offer evidence that the underlying silver is original.


Note on the highest part of the head, Luna has a slightly copper look where the silver wash has worn away. Otherwise the surface is silver. The rest of the body is flatly struck with no robe detail. The obverse portrait barely shows separation between the crown and head but is fully silvered. Save the tiny reddish spot on the head of Luna, the coin is unworn.

So is the coin mint state? Not to me! To be called VF I would want to see some detail on the reverse figure and a bit more portrait crispness. How would the slabbers grade a coin like this? US TPG standards recognize that some unworn coins have weaker strikes (MS60) while others have better die detail (MS66+) but a little wear would make each coin AU. This coin left the dies in what I would call aVF. There are much worse examples. For comparison, at the bottom of this post is another mostly silvered type (Saturn) with full body detail and a portrait with a good ear. The OP coin should look like this! The range between the strongest and weakest strike on ancients is much greater than on moderns. How do you feel about such coins? Would you rather have this silvery one or a well struck (more detailed) but slightly worn VF that has lost its silver to time?

 

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I'd accept it into my collection. Im honestly not that picky when it comes to such issues.

I have posted both before but the top Valerian II has issues, being struck with worn dies but has excellent silver and weight & was $24 total.

The second Valerian ii/spes has surface issues, lower grade silver, no eye on the portrait but a scarcer reverse and was $55.

I no longer own the Spes since I got the $24 one, and I dont regret it. The portrait bothered me over time even though I liked it being scarcer & so far I have dont mind the worn dies on the $24 one even though its more common.


Valerian II (256 - 258 A.D.)
AR Antoninianus
O: VALERIANVS CAES, Radiate and draped bust right.
R: IOVI CRESCENNI, Infant Jupiter seated facing on goat (Amalthea) standing right,his right hand raised.
Colonia Agrippinensis (Cologne) mint
4.6g
23mm
RIC 3 RSC 26


Valerian II (256 - 258 A.D.)
AR Antoninianus
O: . VALERIANVS NOBIL CAES, radiate, draped & cuirassed bust right.
R: SPES PVBLICA, Spes advancing left, holding flower & hitching hem of skirt.
Antioch or Samosata
21mm
3.7g
RIC 52, RCV 10740

 

Wow, those are excellent questions. Were I a NGC grader, I might designate the first coin Mint State but with a low strike grade, perhaps 3/5.

Regarding preference for a poorly struck mint state vs lower grade with better details, I prefer the latter.

 

Actually, I like your new coin even though I agree it is NOT "mint" state. If you recall, I too recently acquired a Gallienus/Lucifera and although the color appears green in the image, it is actually silver wash:

 

The only thing any of the coins in this thread suffer from is weak striking, which is typical for ants of Gallienus. But we should be careful about using the term "silvering" - recent metallurgical analyses of these coins have demonstrated that the outer layers frequently contain little if any silver at all. They are sometimes alloys of tin, lead, copper, and other elements, treated in such a way to look silvery.

It's really too bad that the animal series coins generally don't exhibit the "high" craftsmanship of the coins in this thread. Why did the most typologically interesting coins of Gallienus have to be so poorly made?

 

Here are a couple of mine, a VIRTVS AVG type with a color that suggests the outer layer does in fact contain some silver, and TRP XVI on the reverse of the second makes it the last in the dated series of ants.

 

This may be an easier question to answer on paper than when actually presented with two physical examples of the same type.

Easy for me to say now I'd go for one with the better details but lower grade of preservation, but if I were to have two actual coins before me, I might end going the other way, and the deciding factor may be something else altogether - perhaps style, centering, or metal-quality.

If it's Gallienus we're talking about, maybe we could just buy both? I know I'd be happy to buy the OP coin.

 

One of the 'interesting' parts of Gallienus' coinage is that it spans many years, 8 mints and crossed over the line between sort of silver coins and those now we can't even call silvered (whitened?). Average Antioch mint coins are better made than the exceptional Siscia but portrait style is another matter. It happens that the zoo coins fell at a time and place when trash was the expected quality. I don't find the zoo as much more interesting as most people who seem willing to pay a premium for trashy examples. I will have to agree that it is hard to accept the range of coins from the under 15 years as coming from one ruler. I wonder just how much direct influence Valerian's capture and Gallienus' seniority had on the trashing of the coinage and why Antioch was able to strike round flans when the others had no interest in the subject. This would be a great place for someone to unearth a correspondence of a mint worker that might give us a clue what was going on in the mint system but the chance of this happening seems less than zero. If I were HBO looking for another toga drama, I might suggest the workers of the mint between Gallienus and Aurelian when things got so bad there was a revolt. We know a lot of the work was done by slaves who don't care but the masters were little better, it would seem.

 

Gobl catalog numbers go a bit over 1700 with sub letters dividing most into several parts so a 'complete' set would probably be between 5000 and 10000 coins. Buying both, if you could find them, do the math. Still at an average of $50 a coin, 10000 would be less than a decent Ides of March denarius (not counting the fifty years of your life I estimate it would take to find some of them). Start young.

 

Ouch. Sometimes you have to pity the theme collector. Still, I'm willing to bet many completists have made just that choice and could otherwise have bought themselves an Eid Mar or two.

 

here's my best gallienus...got it from a coin buddy here on the forum.

 

Gallienus Billon Antoninianus. Mint of Asia. 267 AD, 3.9g, 21.53mm

OBV: GALLIENVS AVG, Radiate, draped & cuirassed bust right.

REV: AETERNITAS AVG, Saturn standing right holding scythe, PXV (short for TR P XV) in ex.

REF: Cohen 44. RIC V-1 (S) 606.

 

I don't know 'completists'; I know several 'students'. Way before you get most specialties anywhere near 'complete' you realize that there are more newly discovered things than you dreamed so you are further from the goal than you were when you were just starting.

Who owns two Eids? OK BM has four silver and a gold but they are special.
http://numismatics.org/crro/id/rrc-508.3
One of the ten here is an obvious fake. If you can't spot it, don't buy one yet. Another one is a fourree. Ditto.

 

It'd be hard to pick which one I'd prefer.

 

NOTE => both of those coins are very nice (congrats on your new addition)

I am usually drawn towards coins that are sweetly-struck rather than their degree of silvering ...

Oh, and I also agree that it is sometimes nice to have a few small imperfections on the patina (like your wee lil' green crusties) ... yah, I tend to trust the coin's authenticity a bit more if it has the odd blemish (beauty-mark) tossed-in to keep it honest ...

 

Nice coins, I generally pick coins with eye appeal. A nicely struck coin thats pretty good centered is good in my books.

 

I'm waiting for Dansco to make the album, then I'll get started.

 

I have several of Gallienus, but this is my favourite


Tigress left.

 

Nice coins everyone. I guess for me, I would say detail over silvering would be my preference normally.

 

must be a recent hoard as the silvering/condition of these recent purchases matches mine... well preserved by the looks of it.