Unique Medallion of Numerianus

Marcus Aurelius Numerianus was born around 253, probably in or around Siscia, as the younger son of the army officer and future pretorian prefect Carus.
When his father took the purple in September 282 after the assassination of Probus, he immediately bestowed the rank of Caesar on his elder son, Carinus.
Numerianus was hailed Caesar at Ticinum in early December 282. He then joined his father on a highly successful campaign against the Sarmathians and Quadi in Pannonia before heading to the eastern capital of Antiochia, where Numerianus was hailed Imperator in mid February, 283. Carinus was left behind to guard the western provinces and would never see his brother again.
In early April Numerianus joined Carus´ great Persian campaign to take revenge for the capture of Emperor Valerian in 260. Carus probably invaded Mesopotamia using the road via Beroea and Resaina to Nisibis and from there parallel to the Tigris river passing Carrhae and then took Coche (formerly Seleucia) and finally the Sasanidian capital Ctesiphon in June.
In early July however, Carus suddenly died, either struck by lightning, a stroke, or the victim of a plague that Numerian may also have contracted.

The news of Carus´ death must have reached Rome by express courier service from Mesopotamia in about 14 days, it must have taken another three to four days to reach Carinus at Milan, where he was celebrating his wedding with Magnia Urbica.
After completing the wedding celebration and honoring Numerian as new Augustus and Co-Emperor, Carinus left Milan in early August and travelled to Rome in company of his wife and the imperial guard. He must have reached the capital by mid or late August of 283, which marked the first visit to the capital by a member of the imperial family.

Meanwhile the roman mint prepared an emission (it´s 3rd during the rule of Carus and his sons) of Aurei and Antoniniani to celebrate the victories in Germany and Persia, while the elevation of Numerianus was celebrated with an issue of AE Medallions bearing his laureate portrait on the obverse combined with the three Monetae, the traditional reverse type for large Medallions at the time.
These would be the first Medallions created in the name of Numerianus (none were minted for him as Caesar) and the only ones struck for him at the Rome mint.




IMP C AVR NVMERIANVS AVG - Laureate, draped and cuirassed bust of Numerian right, seen from behind
MONETA AVGG – the three Monetae standing left, each holding scales above pile of coins in right hand and cornucopia in left
AE-Medallion, Rome mint, 1.-10. August 283 (3rd emission)
32 mm / 20,87 gr / 12h
Cohen (2nd ed. 1880) Numerian, Nr. 32 (this coin); Gnecchi II (1912), Numerian Nr. 9 (this coin); Pink ("Die Medaillonprägung unter Carus und seinen Söhnen", 1958) Nr.18 (this coin discussed).
From the collections of Claude Camille Rollin (1813-1883), Eduard Friedrich Weber (1830-1907), Clarence S. Bement (1843-1923), and Paul Tinchant (1893-1981);
Auctions Jacob Hirsch 10.05.1909 (Consul Weber) Nr.2424; Naville VIII 25.06.1924
(C.S. Bement) Nr. 1428; Schulman 243, 08.10.1966 (Richard J. Graham) Nr. 2507



The most familiar reverse type of Roman medallions shows the Tres Monetae. It makes its first appearance on a brass medallion of Lucius Verus, after which it became a staple throughout most of the 3rd Century. This medallion type occasionally was used for circulating coins, notably on Sestertii of Commodus and Septimius Severus. Initially bearing inscriptions such as AEQVITAS PVBLICA(E) or AEQVITAS AVGVSTI, but by the reign of Trajan Decius it had assumed its most familiar form, MONETA AVG(G).
All three figures hold a cornucopia and set of scales, and stand beside a heap of coins. Invariably the two outer figures hold scales hung at the end of rods or cords of more or less equal length, whereas the central figure suspends her scale from a much longer rod or cord. Since the figures represent the three principal coining metals – gold, silver and copper – we may presume the central figure represents gold, and that her distinctive appearance represents the more careful standard to which gold was weighed.

While some of Carinus´ medallions of this issue showed a martial military left facing bust holding a lance (plus sometimes a shield), all of Numerians´s specimens feature the more traditional right facing bust with Paludamentum.

The later were minted in two varieties, the first featuring the obverse legend IMP C NVMERIANVS PF AVG with the bust of the young emperor seen from the front (Cohen Nr.28 = Gnecchi Nr.5 = Pink 24), with either all three Monetae on the reverse facing left (Pink 24 a, 4 specimens), or the central Moneta facing frontal (Pink Nr.24b, 1 specimen).

The second featured the legend IMP C M AVR NVMERIANVS AVG and a bust seen from behind, featuring a neckband (Gnecchi Nr.7 and 8 = Pink Nr. 19). There are six other specimens of this type (Pink Nr.19) known today:

1. Rome (Gnecchi collection), 16,7 g, 33 mm (Illustrated in Gnecchi)
2. Vienna, 21,0 g, 33 mm (illustrated in Pink, Medaillenprägung)
3. Paris, 21,92 g, 32 mm (line drawing in Cohen)
4. Paris (very worn), 15,18 g, 32 mm
5. Boston, 16,43 g, 31,5 mm
6. ex Bizot collection (Auction Schulmann 1923, Nr. 2497) 23,10 g, 33 mm

My Medallion resembles this type, but features the unique legend "IMP C AVR NVMERIANVS AVG", seemingly not found on a single other published coin of this ruler.

This is due to the fact that, as is visible by the crack on both sides, the part of the coin that bears the beginning of the obverse inscription has broken off at an unknown date (maybe as early as late Antiquity as someone might have attempted to nail it onto the wall of a catacomb or pierce it to turn it into a piece of jewelry, who knows?) and was
replaced at a later date by someone who was skilled, but either forgot a letter, did not have the necessary references, or simply did not have enough space left for the "M".

I do assume that the other 82 % of my Medallion (including the portrait) are antique and genuine. Here are pictures of Nr. 1, 2, 3 and 6 of the original type (Pink Nr.19):



A am no good in recognizing die matches. Do you see any in between these coins and mine?

Please show your Medallions, Monetae, and Numerians!

 

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Disregarding the presumed new portion of your medallion, based solely on the legend spacing and position there is no reverse die match to any of the four coins shown.

There may be an obverse match-- it is very close to the first archival example and perhaps others-- but it is very difficult to do an overlay with the small/low-res images of the other medallion and because of the image of your medallion is not planar (the coin is tilted).

Can you reshoot the obverse of your coin so that it is flat to the camera? Huge images aren't needed-- 500 pixels wide is plenty if there isn't a lot of extraneous background .

 

Also, can you give me the links to the archive images? I'm hoping to find them in slightly larger size/resolution.

 

Sure - here is the seller´s picture:

 

The Boston coin, Nr. 6:
https://www.mfa.org/collections/object/medallion-with-bust-of-numerian-261164

No higher resolution for others available (enlarged scans from old books):

The Gnecchi coin, Nr.1:

Vienna coin, Nr.2:


Paris coin, Nr.3:

 

Thanks, that helped.

I believe your medallion shares an obverse die with each of the three medallions shown. It doesn't quite match the line drawing but that may be due to slight inaccuracies in the drawing. The last one is a bit iffy but I think that's because it's had some tooling or clumsy cleaning.

Here are some animated overlays with your medallion as the overlay. The new part added during reconstruction of the coin does not match, as you knew. I've made that area more transparent.

 

TIF, you just made me very happy!!! Thank you very much!!!!!

 

I'm working on fine-tuning the technique for these overlays so the opportunity to practice is welcome .

 

Julius Germanicus, This is an outstanding article with excellent photos. It should be a Featured Article!

 

That repair job is simply outstanding.

 

Great medallion - thanks for sharing it.

 

The line drawing of the Paris medallion has a lot of noise which is probably artifactual. Painting over that noise gives a cleaner drawing:



This allowed a clearer overlay. There may be some artistic license in the Paris drawing, and probably some alteration of the OP medallion from wear, corrosion, cleaning, or other factors, but I think the Paris medallion is also an obverse die match:





Summary of the dies for the five medallions shown in this thread:

• All five are from the same obverse die.
• The Gnecchi reverse and the Paris reverse (#3; the line drawing in Cohen) may be die matches
• The reverses for the rest of the coins shown in this thread are not die matches to the OP coin or to one another.

 

You did an outstanding analysis, TIF
It supports Jocelyn Toynbees thesis that most Medallion types come from just a single die or pair of dies. In this case, the combination of a single obverse die with different reverse dies could show that a number of reverse dies for the popular MONETA AVGG reverse were made at the Rome mint to be combined with unique obverse dies for Carus, Carinus and Numerianus and their various bust types.

That is great! If you want to keep practicing, here are specimens of the other variety of Numerianus´ Medallions from the Rome mint, struck at the same time, but featuring the obverse legend IMP C NVMERIANVS PF AVG with the bust seen from the front (Cohen Nr.28, Gnecchi Nr.5, Pink 24):

Nr.1 - Drawing from Cohen

Nr.2 - Illustration in Gnecchi

Nr.3 - from CNG website

Looks like they all come from one obverse die also, but what about the reverses?

 

What a fantastic coin, JG! I assumed your collection would end with the sestertius in the middle of the 3rd century crisis, but this is really going above and beyond to continue with the large bronzes. Well done!!

 

Yes, these three obverse align well. The reverses are from three different dies. I haven't yet checked to see if any of these reverses match the first group-- another day .

 

Fascinating thread about a numismatically significant and very rare coin! As you know, I'm very interested in die studies and this thread deserves to be a featured article. Kudos to @TIF for all her hard work at making the overlays to evaluate for die matches!

 

In any case the work must have been so good that neither it´s first known owner, Claude Camille Rollin (1813-1883), a French dealer in coins, gems and antiquities, who founded the famous French auction house Rollin & Feuradent in 1860 with Felix Feuradent (1819-1907), nor Henry Cohen (1806-1880), who first published the coin and had the chance to personally inspect it during the preparation of the second edition of his „Description historique des monnaies frappees sous l´Empire Romain“, as Rollin and Feuradent were the publishers of both editions of his famous catalogue, noticed it.
In Volume 5 of the first edition (1861) Cohen does not yet mention this coin yet (he only knows Medallions with the legends IMP C NVMERIANVS PF AVG (Cohen 16) and IMP C M AVR NVMERIANVS AVG (Cohen 18)), so Rollin must have acquired it in the 1860s or 70s.
The coin was most likely found, like most extant AE Medallions according to Gnecchi, at Rome. Toynbee further points out that "all our evidence, in fact, points to the conclusion that the Catacombs were the provenance of the vast majority of the Medallions that came to light in Rome between 1600 and 1850 and are now scattered throughout the museums and private collections of the world".

Obviously also neither the Medallion´s next owner, Eduard Friedrich Weber (1830-1907), famous Hamburg businessman, consul for the Hawaii islands, art collector and owner of maybe the largest private coin collection of his time (nearly 12.000 pieces) nor his numismatic advisor Dr. Jacob Hirsch, who put together the catalogue for the Consul Weber auction in 1909 (after the City of Hamburg could not afford to buy the collection from Weber´s heirs), noticed the "modern" repair job.

Same goes for Francesco Gnecchi (1847-1919), who included it in Vol.2 of his "Medaglioni Romani" in 1912, mentioning the Weber collection.

Here is the Medallion on Plate XLI of the 1909 Hirsch Catalogue (note the presence of the visible crack):

 

A real masterpiece !

 

I found one more (same obverse die as mine, but a little tooled?):


7. Berlin Coin Cabinet (ex Sandes Collection) , 16,19 g, 34 mm
H.Dressel: "Die Römischen Medaillone der Staatlichen Museen zu Berlin", Nr.176

 

I love die studies, too! It´s just that I´m not as good at them as TIF .

So here are two more specimens we can compare my Medallion with:

This one is from the Vienna coin Cabinett:

It seems to be from the same obverse die like my coin, but another different reverse.
As this is NOT the specimen illustrated by Pink which I showed as Nr.2 in my OP, and according to the Vienna museum is the only one of their three Numerian Medallions that matches my type, the example shown by Pink must be a different specimen, maybe the one from the 1923 Schulmann catalogue (Nr. 2497, ex Bizot collection) that I mentioned as Nr.6 in my OP. Does someone here have access to that catalogue?

Maybe my Medallion might not even be of the same exact reverse type as the coins I showed for comparison in my OP. Those (including the Vienna coin above) all have the three Montae facing LEFT (Gnecchi Nr.7-9, six known apart from my coin).
The Berlin coin (illustrated in my last post above) however has the central Moneta FACING (Gnecchi Nr.10).
There are four Medallions known of that type (all presumably from the same single obverse die as the other variety) according to Gnecchi: the one in Berlin (pictured above) plus specimens in Florence, the Vatican, and Madrid.
Here is the Florence Medallion:


This is obviously again from the same obverse die and the reverse looks quite similar to the Berlin Medallion.

Curtis Clay (on the German forum) made the interesting observation that on reverse dies where all three Monetae are facing left (Gnecchi Nr.7-9), the upper and lower ends of their cornucopiae are usually bent to the left, while on dies where the ends of the central Moneta´s cornucopia are bent to the right, the central Moneta is facing frontal (like on the Berlin and Florence coins, Gnecchi Nr.10).
Also, according to Curtis, left facing Monatae (ends of cornucopia accordingly bent to the left also) should be standing on their right leg (their left foot tilted to the side, i.e. towards the viewer), while Monetae facing frontally (ends of cornucopia bent to the right) stand on their LEFT leg (their right foot tilted towards the viewer).
As on my Medallion the central Moneta´s cornucopia´s ends are obviously also bent to the right, and according to Curtis she is standing on her left leg, Curtis concludes that she therefore must be facing frontal.
I cannot determine weather she is facing left or frontal due to the coin´s wear, but maybe you can.
If Curtis is rigth, that could be the reason why I could not find a reverse die match for my coin yet.

Does someone here know a source where the Vatican and Madrid Medallions might be pictured?