What happened to my Maxentius' reverse?

Calling all experts. I just bought this wonderful Maxentius for it's sharp and exquisite portrait, and for the temple on the reverse (I didn't have any architectural coins in my collection.) The strange error/double strike on the reverse was also intriguing to me, and made the coin much more interesting.

What do you think happened to cause this odd double strike or this odd error? Please give it your best guess. I don't know the answer, but I'm sure someone here must have an idea.


Maxentius(A.D. 306-312),Follis,5.74g., 22mm, Rome mint, (autumn A.D.307-spring 308), uncertain officina,laureate head of Maxentius right, IMPCMAXENTIVSPFAVG, rev., Roma seated facing, head leftin hexastyle temple, wreath inpediment, holding globe and sceptre, shield at side, CONSERV VRB SVAE, RB[?] in exergue, (RCV 14986; RIC 202a); double strike on reverse?

 

Log in or Sign up to hide this ad.

No. Crack(s), Shift, Off-center. Movement: EARTHQUAKE.

 

Never seen such a superb portrait of Maxentius. Congrats..

 

Indeed

 

Ok, so we have an earthquake. Any other opinions?

 

A wind storm
Or maybe the guy holding it sneezed as the hammer struck

 

That's actually a pretty good guess. I wouldn't be surprised if he sneezed and created the double strike that way. You do have to admit it is a pretty interesting reverse double strike.

 

Sweet coin Sallent, always nice to see ancient errors.

 

Although the portrait was the first thing that drew me to the coin, followed by the architectural reverse, the double strike sealed the deal. I don't have any ancient coins with any significant error, and I've always wanted one. Perfect coins are great, but I do find errors fascinating and I really wanted to get one for the longest time. I think the double strike is what sealed the deal here for me.

 

Haha, lol. Out of all , honisty its not a bad explimation for the odd strike though, mabye the person who struck it was a beginner at it too.

 

Die shift, I think. If anyone can figure it out, though, it's @dougsmit

 

Whatever the explanation, it's a very cool coin!!

 

Well, I think you already identified what happened. The reverse is double struck.
Perhaps it happened like this:

(obverse is the anvil die; hammer is the reverse die) The first strike was a glancing blow with the hammer/die hitting at an angle so that only the top of the temple transferred (or it was the struck the deepest at that area), and it also flattened it out a little bit on that portion. Seeing the mis-strike, the worker then stopped watching the pretty woman who was walking by, straightened out and rotated the reverse die, and struck it properly .

I could be wrong.

 

It is a great portrait Sallent and the reverse just adds to that odd curiousity that drives some of my strangest purchases.
I have a Constantine X, my only Byzantine coin I own that is double struck. I've yet to figure it out. I bought it from Ancientnoob when I first started getting serious about ancients. I was curious about it and not sure what my focus would be, 2 years later I still don't know. But I still buy strange coins it keeps me going and learning.

 

Can I steal your image for my records? I think it is a compelling illustration of what may have happened, and I'd definitely love to have it.

 

Of course! Hopefully someone with more knowledge will chime in and say whether I'm on the right track. I'm pretty sure it happened in that order but would like other opinions. When you get the coin, see if the flan is thinner where the partial roof is. That would strengthen my theory.

Also, the flan must've stayed put in the anvil die between strikes. It is nice and crisp because it was struck twice without any appreciable shift of the flan in the die.

 

Nice looking coin guys, both @Sallent and @ro1974


Mine looks a bit raggedy by comparison....

 

Curtis Clay has promoted a theory that striking teams consisted of one obverse die shared by two reverse teams. This allowed the reverse dies to cool a bit between strikes and made more efficient use of the obverse dies that lasted longer. Some show the two reverse dies with different types but usually they match. The idea is that the second reverse die was placed over the old coin rather than waiting for a new blank. Often one strike is weak; usually they are inverted since one team was working from the opposite side of the other. Searching Forvm for Curtis' posts on the matter might make the theory more clear. I say his arguments make a great deal of sense and I tend to accept this one. The obverse never left the die between strikes so there is no doubling on that side.

My Arcadius example is perfectly 180 degrees inverted. ANTS appears upside down at the top.

 

Here is my example with two different reverse types from the nearby mint of Ostia, not so many years apart from the OP coin. It seems to support Curtis Clay's theory of two reverse teams, and is also 180 degrees aligned like in Doug's example.