I have just taken some new pics of my Trajan's column sestertius in the hope I could ascertain for certain what RIC number it is, I have always thought 600 but that one has drapery left shoulder and I am not sure if mine has, but think not, looking at these new pics. There are three possibilities 579, 600 or 601, unless any of you know of any I have missed. My question is what number and how you come about this? any help would be greatly appreciated.
I assume you are confident the reverse reads S P Q R OPTIMO PRINCIPI, because there is a later series which has SENATVS POPVLVSQVE ROMANVS S C. 579-580 have the obverse legend IMP CAES NERVAE TRAIANO AVG GER DAC P M TR P COS V P P. 579 has laureate head right. 580 is similar but the bust also has an aegis. Here's the listing: The tricky thing is that 579 is illustrated in the plates, and even though the listing says nothing about eagles at the base of the column, there are obviously two things flanking the base of the column: This coin, however, doesn't come up when I search the British Museum collection for "Trajan sestertius column." However, those two things don't resemble the eagles at the base in the BMC's examples of RIC 600, below, nor do they resemble what flank the base of the column on your coin. They are probably supposed to be eagles, nonetheless, and I wouldn't put a lot of faith in the appearance of these when it comes to attributing your coin. 600 - 602 have the obverse legend IMP CAES NERVAE TRAIANO AVG GER DAC P M TR P COS VI P P. 600 has laureate head right with slight drapery; 601 is without the drapery; 602 is similar but the bust also has an aegis. There are two eagles at the base of the column on the reverse. Here's the listing: I believe yours has the eagles at the base (see BMC examples, below). I don't see slight drapery on the shoulder or an aegis. Yours is probably 601 (but could be 579). Here are the British Museum's examples of 600 (they don't have the others): Here's an example of 601 from CNG's archives: Basically, it comes down to whether it has COS V or COS VI on the obverse legend or whether those things flanking the column on 579 are eagles.
I searched at acsearch info for "Trajan sestertius 579" to see what came up. Three similar coins. The one from NAC is clearly misattributed because COS VI is plain as day. It's actually 601. The one from Gorny & Mosch doesn't have enough of the obverse legend to say whether it reads COS V or COS VI and may well be misattributed. The one from Heidelberger has been "geglättet" (smoothed), by which they mean tooled extensively. Wildwinds doesn't have an example of 579. OCRE claims to have an example of 579, but its obverse legend is too worn to say it isn't actually 601. In short, I can't find an unambiguous example of 579 online. It must be rare, whereas 601 is relatively common.
Thanks very much Roman Collector, excellent sleuthing, your right though it comes down to if you can read the obverse legend. You can just see the COSV on mine but the rest is to worn my guess from the distance to the bottom of his bust there is definitely room for COSVI PP, so I am confident it is probably 601. It is good to have another set of eyes help determine.
