I avidly collect eastern mint Severan denarii. There have been some reverse types that have eluded me thus far. I have just added a Basket of fruit type denarius of Julia Domna to my collection that I think is worthy of sharing. Denarius Obv:– IVLIA DOMNA AVG, Draped bust right Rev:– FELECI[TAS] TEMPOR, Basket of grains and fruit. Minted in Emesa. A.D. 194 - 195 Reference(s) – cf RIC IV 619; cf BMCRE 415; The FELECI is clear but I am supposing the TAS based upon the spacing and what would appear to be the ghosting of the letter that have been lost through clogging.
Curtis Clay has confirmed my reading of the coin based on an example in his own collection from matching dies with clear legends.
I've been collecting for a long, long time, and I haven't seen this reverse before now (maybe I wasn't paying any attention over the years).
Your reverse die is a two dot version. Curtis believes the dots are meaningless and just put there to fill space. I disagreed with him 20 years ago and still do. This is not a common coin. There is a sign on coin street directing the way to Martin's collection. It is where cool coins want to live.
yeah, what everyone else said...that reverse grabbed my attention. seems like the type of reverse you'd see on a AE provincial...very cool.
I love that coin. I eventually bid on it at the Naville auction, and was largely outbid. I'm glad it's now in your trays Martin : your home is better than more others (mine included) for those Congrats Q
I loved that type, too. My Domna came from the Kelley sale in 1997. That was a great sale for Severan and other Eastern mint coins. It was cheap since the sale had so very many coins and relatively few bidders were into the specialty in 1997. Less than a year later I paid five times as much for the Septimius but I had to have it because it was die linked to mine. It was sold by a consistently overpriced US dealer who had no idea why I wanted it. Sometimes we do strange things for strange reasons. https://cngcoins.com/Search.aspx?PA...R_TYPE_ID_2=1&SEARCH_IN_CONTAINER_TYPE_ID_4=1 Look at the results on the above link (also check the tab for the 4 printed auction results). In some cases I see why a coin went high or low. Others? Not so much.
Fantastic coin Martin. That reverse is something very special. Concerning the dots: On Flavian denarii the dots seem to be present on the finer styled dies, more often than not. I don't know what to make of this other than thinking perhaps the more skilled engravers were taught their craft in a similar manner.
Wonderful coins! These are attributed to the Emesa mint. Aside from the fact that Julia Domna came from Emesa, how do we know these were minted in that city? Are there dated denarii of Severus with corresponding stylistic/artistic qualities as these, whereby the date would place him at or near Emesa according to the histories? I'm sure that if I did a lot of digging I could find this information for myself, but the specialists on this thread might know offhand.
We sometimes see the mint listed as "Emesa" with the quotes meaning the mint that RIC/BMC listed by that name but that we are really not certain about. My preference is a travelling mint moving with the Imperial party but that is more a fanciful dream than a scholarly opinion. The theory on which the attribution was based was that Antioch was disgraced for supporting Pescennius in the early part of the war and the Septimian mint had to be elsewhere. Details are far from certain even on the number of mints let alone locations.
We know that they come from eastern mints that were contemporary with the wars being wages by Septimius in the region during A.D. 193 - A.D. 194. Even this coins of Septimius that have dating information on them are challenging to order into a chronology as we know so little about them. There is a series for Septimius that starts without dating information and moves into COS II. We are fairly sure that these are linked as we can see direct die linkages through the issues. There are other COS II coins that are similar in style but have odd legends and might be from a different mint. Die linkage is important in studying these. There is a separate output with IMP II and IMP VIII which doesn't appear to have die linkage to the COS issues but appears contemporary or nearly so. This might be produced by the same mint (separate workshop) or a separate mint we don't know and lots of theories abound. The Domna output is linked to the Septimius output through die linkage such as illustrated by Doug above where the same reverse die appears for both. We can then use style to link the other Domna coins to this mint. The actual location of the mint(s) is not known as it is not documented. Whether there is one mint, two mints, some fixed mints and some travelling mints is open to debate and study.
