I just received this oddity today. Could this possible happen by accident? Its obviously seen wide circulation, I wonder how a person felt being paid with a piece like this? Did they find in humorous or interesting? From the several bankers marks, it must have made someone a little nervous. Does anyone else have any flip-over double strikes? Let's see them!
That's actually kind of neat! I like how 'CAESAR' is on both the obverse and reverse. And isn't there three banker's marks on the obverse?
Neato!! That's a very fun example of a common but desirable type. Bonus: extra elephant head on the obverse
It looks like three, maybe four bankers marks on the front and another three on the reverse. This must have raised a few eyebrows! I never saw that bonus elephant TIF, good eyes
It would appear that the coin was struck, then flipped over, then a new flan was inserted, then this coin somehow made its way back between the dies. That would account for the fact that there is no design on the double-struck area of the obverse, merely a blurring of the elephant's forepart.
I have never been attracted/interested in these types of coins, but that bonus elephant and double CAESAR is really nice!! Guess I will have to start looking for oddities.
That's how I see it as well. It seems this must have been intentional unless there's another reasonable theory.
Something like this? Orange piece being that second flan, and black is rev. of the coin? It's a little difficult to imagine how this could had happened.
Yes, I think you're on the right track. Similar errors occur in modern mints, involving several sequential strikes, beginning when a struck coin sticks to the 'hammer' die. Someone in the Error Coins forum could probably trace the exact sequence. As with any factory setting, I can imagine Roman mint workers being "encouraged" to work as quickly as humanly possible - bang bang bang - as quickly as a strong man can swing a hammer while another feeds blanks onto the anvil, particularly when the loyalty of troops may depend on a timely payroll.
Then it should be like this. This makes sense now, the rev/hammer die held the coin, and it flipped as it fell off the die and landed on the flan.Black face is the obv, after the flip ended up being on top.
Another option would have been a stammering monetary magistrate ordering the strikes in the name of Caesar Interesting coin BTW Q
As fast as they must have been working, I have no problem accepting such coins as accidental. I have a few. Septimius Severus flipover with very good alignment. The longer you look at it the more you see. Claudius II / Pax is just a mess. My favorite flip is this Magnentius which started as a brockage and flipped so it has one obverse strike, two normal reverses and one incuse reverse.
About the original CAESAR coin. If the bottom-left of the photo on the left is opposite the left of the coin on the right, here is a proposed explanation. I do not postulate two flans being involved. Strike one flan. The first try was badly off-center creating the off-center "CAESAR" on the right image and the depression of the upper right on the left photo. The minters realized the coin was too off-center, so they put the partially-struck flan back on the obverse die to strike again, this time fairly well-centered, but upside down relative to the first strike. With an even blow they might have deleted evidence of the earlier mis-strike. However, the second blow was not even, it was struck with a titled die so that the force was mostly toward the bottom left of the left image and the left of the right image so it did not delete the previous CAESAR and did not strike up the elephant's head.
