I have not been able to find a reference for this year 4 coin, but I did only check a few online sites, including RPC. Does anyone happen to have a reference for it? There are quite a few others shown in RPC for other years, but not a year 4 example. Trajan Hemidrachm A.D. 100- 101 Ӕ 34 23gm ΑΥΤ ΤΡΑΙΑΝ СƐΒ ΓƐΡΜ ΔΑΚΙΚ; laureate and draped bust right. REV: Trajan standing in elephant quadriga, r., laureate-headed, wearing toga, holding eagle-tipped sceptre and branch; LΔ above (regnal year 4) Alexandria, Egypt
Emmett does not show it for year 4. He lists years 5, 11-18, and 20. I'll look in a few other references tomorrow.
Could this be a year 14, with the I not visible as a result of a clogged die? The I is sometimes struck very close to L, to the point where on some it even seems to sit on top of the end of L.
The only other thing that comes to mind is that the omission of the I was a die worker's error. I see in Emmett that the obverse legend ending ΓƐΡΜ was used by Trajan in years 1-6. What you have on your coin, ΓƐΡΜ ΔΑΚΙΚ, was used in years 10-18.
Good thinking, Z! I was trying to make "L K" out of the OP date blob, but the legend isn't right unless it continues under the bust (and off this flan). Emmett is sometimes wrong about the year/legend pairings but I haven't found that to be the case very often for the earlier Alexandrian issues, such as Trajan. Here's an example of a year 20, but the obverse legend is longer (as recorded in Emmett): https://www.numisbids.com/n.php?p=lot&sid=1890&lot=804
Just a warning to those with worn examples of the type (there are a lot of them): Hadrian continued using elephants and missing legends could confuse you. This is Hadrian year 2.
Good point. Hadrian looks like Trajan on his earlier coins of Roman Egypt. I've misidentified Hadrian as Trajan many times... and I've seen auctions houses do it too.
