Group lot goodies: 83 x fun, plus a draw!

Volusian??

 

Log in or Sign up to hide this ad.

Could be...
Euboea, Chalcis. 369-313 B.C. AE 15 mm. Head of Hera three-quarter face to r., wearing diadem surmounted by five disks (representing the planets?).
Reverse: Eagle flying r., carrying snake in talons and beak.
SNG C 443 ff.

BTW..Great thread I've learnt a great deal from the pros
Paul

 

Indeed we haven't! An easy one (at least to ID the emperor) but that's enough to get your name in the hat. It's a PAX ant.:

Too bad it has somehow been scraped down to bare metal on the highest points, both sides.

 

Nope! I just discovered this is one of the few I hadn't photographed. It's a Gallienus, and after investigating it further just now, it really has me puzzled. Here's a quickie cellphone photo (on some funky felt):
(actually not a bad photo, maybe I will try that again sometime!)

Sure looks like a fourrée, but on a Gallienus?!? Acsearch didn't turn up any fourrées of either Gallienus or Valerian, nor could I find info about any such thing elsewhere online. I figured it was just the effect (discussed on @Valentinian's page here) of the strike producing a thin layer of fairly pure silver on the surface, which wore away in spots & corroded underneath. I put it aside as one of the lot's duds. (That's why I didn't have a photo.)

But now I'm not so sure...

1) First, it's from the joint reign period (PROVIDENTIA AVGG), so before 260, when the silver content was higher (maybe 20% or even a bit more)... so still barely worth counterfeiting perhaps, at least in volume.

2) More importantly, it's not in RIC. The obverse legend is a bit tricky to make out, but there clearly isn't room for "IMP" or anything more extensive before "GALLIENVS PF AVG". I think that's the full legend (#6 in RIC, used in Lugdunum 256-9, Rome 260ish, and Milan 257-260ish). The reverse matches RIC 158-60 (Rome mint), but none of those have a plausible match to the obverse legend! No matches on acsearch either, or gallienus.net or gallienus.info or wildwinds. (The portrait style doesn't look like Rome to me either, but I'm not confident of that. The reverse type only occurs at Rome, or at Milan with a different legend.)

Point 2 very strongly suggests this is an unofficial issue. In addition to point (1) and the fact that it very much looks plated, I am now leaning towards the view that this is indeed a fourrée. In which case it would be one of the last (silver) fourrées to have been produced before Diocletian's reforms!

I would be very interested to hear your opinion on this, @zumbly... also @Valentinian and @dougsmit... and anyone else!

In any case, this has almost certainly gone from dud to keeper! Thanks for the prompt!!

 

Yes, that's it! (I'm not sure of the exact reference as there seem to be a few subtle varieties.) I didn't know about the planets possibility, that's cool! This example clearly shows faces on the tiara, but I guess that doesn't rule out the planets idea.

 

Thanks, so have I. But are you sure you aren't one of the pros!?

 

That would be very unusual, for the reasons you state. Look at the edge at 9:00 on the reverse photo. It does look a lot like foil wrapped around the flan, which is how fourrees were made under the early empire. Surfaces of low-silver flans often look more silvery than the interior because of the metallurgy of striking, but this one looks like two distinct layers, copper and then suddenly silver. This silver layer appears thinner than most "silver-foil" produced fourrees, but maybe this counterfeiter was particularly skillful.

I think you figured it out. I would have been proud to have that one in my collection for my site. I thought having a Treb Gallus was late for this type of counterfeit.

20 mm. 5:30. 3.38 grams.
IMP C C VIB TREB GALLVS AVG
/PIETAS AVG, Pietas standing, raising both hands. Altar at feet left.
Prototype: Sear 3.9242 (no photo), RIC 72 (Milan) page 166, plate 13.16.

Gallienus is even later.

Before the internet these late counterfeit types were very little known. I can remember in the 1980s meeting a serious Gordian III specialist at a convention and showing him fourrees of Gordian III and he didn't, at the time, even know such things existed. They were not worth enough to be in sale catalogs, few articles had been written about counterfeits, and web sites like mine did not yet exist.

The world has changed a lot since the 1980s. Some of it is not for the better, but for information about obscure areas of ancient numismatics it is wonderful.

 

Thanks very much, @Valentinian! Obviously I'm pleased that you agree with me about the coin. From dud to one of the best in the lot! Cool.

I suppose that's part of the reason why these are so rare: not only did a counterfeiting operation promise meagre profits, it required great skill. And the thin skin made the fakery more easily detected too.

 

@Brian Bucklan and @Spaniard, here is the Lycian Perikles AE: goat (or ibex) obverse rather than Pan or lion scalp:


(This very coin failed to sell in an auction last year.)

 

Full ID on this is Fatimid quarter dinar, al-'Aziz, AH 365-386 (975-996), undated, Siqilliya (Sicily) mint, Album-704... EXCEPT Steve Album told me that it appears to be a European imitation. It is probably Italian, in which case it was likely produced in the Lombard states in southern Italy (e.g. Amalfi, Salerno, see map below).

I'm having trouble finding much info on this coin, and I think I'll need to get my hands on vol. 14 of Grierson's monumental Medieval European Coinage. Also there's an article on Fatimid imitations in the Israel Numismatic Journal, not sure how I'll get that.

Anyway, a neat coin, definitely a keeper! @arnoldoe

 

Wow, as I had said, cool fourree. I think Warren has this well-covered. What else is there to say apart from "awesome!" .

 

It's past time to wrap this thread up. I'll post the coins visible in the group shot first, then the remainder. Then it will be time for the draw!

 

These are two Maximianus folles from Trier, RIC 170b:

 

Here's the Diocletian visible in the top right, also Trier:

 

Nobody guessed the correct emperor on this sestertius. It's Commodus. I didn't get a good photo, but here's one from an auction last year, where it failed to sell at 60 CHF:

Commodus (177-192 AD). AE Sestertius (29 mm, 18.27 g), Rome mint, issued 183.
Obv. M COMMODVS ANTONINVS AVG PIVS, laureate head right.
Rev. TR P VIII IMP VI COS IIII P P / S C, emperor driving quadriga left, holding eagle-tipped sceptre.
RIC 376. (@Andres2)

 

This is a scary lookin' Julia Domna limes denarius:

Unless @dougsmit has something interesting to say about what's going on in front of Julia's mouth (overstruck limes? ), this one is surely a dud.

 

Then there's the front 'n' centre campgate, a Constantius II as Caesar:


I didn't already have either a Constantius II as Caesar, or a campgate(!!), but instead of this one I will be keeping a nicer one that was hidden in the pile:

 

Just underneath the Larissa drachm is this squidgeon:


... which I think is this little guy:

Not a beauty, but this is a rare Rome Constantine II issue as Augustus, issued just before he was killed (RIC 32 or 43?). So I'll probably keep it.

 

The decent Valentinian II AE2 visible near the bottom right:


Nicomedia maybe? Not fantastic, but I don't have one, so a tentative keeper.

 

This one (@Ajax):

... is a mediocre Theodora:

but I may keep it anyway, as the one I already had is perhaps more mediocre.