On April 6, 2017 I bought the Antioch Tet of Trajan Decius, pictured below, from Harlan Berk. At the time I was undergoing cancer treatments at the Wilmot Cancer Center in Rochester, NY. I put the coin away & pretty much forgot about it until a few days ago. I think all the coins appearing at auction from the Michel Prieur collection triggered my memory . Both McAlee & Prieur picture examples of this coin type that are different from my coin, however, all three coins were struck from the same obverse die !
Very nice minty tet! I can certainly appreciate the appeal of these chunky eastern Roman silvers, I have a few common ones but wouldn't mind building a run of the emperors who had them struck. How many different Roman tetradrachms do you have now? And do you think that any more forgotten treasures are lurking around your house waiting to be rediscovered? In my experience it's just as fun as finding them the first time!
Beautiful ! I wish mine were as nice as your fabulous example Trajan Decius, Tetradrachm - Antioch mint AVG KG TTEKY DEKIOY TPAIANOC CEB, Laureate and draped bust of Trajan Decius right. Four dots under bust DHMAPXEX OYCIAC, Eagle standing left, holding wreath in beak, SC at exergue 13,56 gr Ref : RC #2723, Prieur #528 Q
Plumbata, I took a serious fancy to Roman Provincial Tets after buying Michel Prieur's book The Syro-Phoenician Tetradrachms and Their Fractions, 17 or 18 years ago, & my interest intensified when I bought a copy of Richard McAlee's book The Coins of Roman Antioch, 12 years ago. I don't know how many of these Tets are in my collection presently, but it's quite a few . Near the end of the year I'll do a piece count when the weather gets rough & I'm house-bound. Over the years I've sold many rare & handsome provincial Tets because they were plentiful & not very expensive, but times have changed . More collectors are scrambling for nice looking examples today & prices are escalating. With McAlee selling many coins from his personal collection & the Prieur collection still being liquidated many collectors & dealers are going wild for these coins . Yesterday CNG sold another large group from Prieur's collection. Although there were many bargains some coins sold many times over estimate, like the handsome Tet pictured below, photo courtesy of CNG. Geta as Caesar, AD 198-209, AR 27 mm, 13.18 gm, 12 h. Prieur 195 (this coin). With an estimate of $500.00 this coin sold for $2,360.00 !
Q, You've got a beautiful looking Tet, it's well struck from fresh dies, perfectly centered, artistically accurate portrait, & blessed with a bronze-like patina ! However I think your attribution is wrong . Prieur #528 was struck at Officina 3, & your coin was struck at Officina 5. Your coin appears to be Prieur #531 .
Q, forgive my mistake , your coin was struck at the 4th Officina (4 dots), Prieur #582 (maybe a typo on your part ?). There are so many varieties with these Tets it's easy to get confused .
Great coin, Al. Trajan Decius (249 - 251 A.D.) Syria, Seleucis and Pieria, Antioch Billon Tetradrachm O: AYT K Γ ME KY TPAIANOC ΔEKIOC CEB, Laureate, draped and cuirassed bust right; Z below. R: ΔHMAPX EΞOYCIAC / S C. Eagle standing left on palm branch, wreath in beak. Antioch Mint 26mm 11.5g Prieur 548
Thanks for the insight @Al Kowsky ! I hope you don't mind me picking your brain some more. So is the maturation of the market for the provincial tetradrachms due to the books you referenced and collectors looking for a rewarding realm that isn't (wasn't) as expensive and competitive as Republican and Imperials, and/or do you see speculative "investors" driving up the prices? And I've wondered for a while where all the nice high grade examples are coming from? Have amphorae full of uncirculated tets been found in the past few decades? I don't recall seeing many or any low grade mid 3rd century examples.
Plumbata, Those are good questions . The books mentioned in the thread have had an obvious impact on the market, especially Prieur's book since his scope is much broader than McAlee's book that focuses mainly on Antioch, Syria. Prieur had a real gift for simplifying the identification of Syro-Phoenician coinage for collectors by using many diagrams of mintmarks & excellent translations of the Greek inscriptions. Roman provincial coinage has always been an area that many ancient coin collectors were afraid to tread, mainly because of a lack of accessible literature. The internet has helped ease that problem. Another factor that has kept collectors away from provincial coinage is an unspoken bias (sometimes blatantly obvious), the presumption that imperial coinage is superior aesthetically to provincial coinage. No doubt there is a lot of ugly provincial coinage , on the other hand, there were many artistic masterpieces made at provincial mints . Of course investor/ speculators are also driving up the prices of provincial coins, & the 3rd party grading companies are making an impact too. As far as hoards go, they are being discovered daily & will always impact the market. We all know that there is a code of secrecy among the major dealers & auction houses that liquidate these hoards. They keep as tight-lipped as possible about hoard details not to upset the market drastically. This can be seen with the huge amount of Athenian Owls being sold on the market today. All the unrest & warfare in the Mideast, especially in countries like Iraq, Syria & Lebanon have hampered discoveries of coin hoards in those countries. If peace ever comes to the Mideast we'll see a lot more coin hoards pop up in the market...
Mat, That's a nice looking Tet with the Z officina letter. Why they didn't use letters from the beginning instead of dots always puzzled me .
What is the line across the head on the OP coin? Flan flaw, die crack, damage? Mine is a three dot from Brian Kritt in September 2001 at a Baltimore show. The same day and dealer provided me with this Philip II Caesar tet from Antioch. It is not nearly as nice due to lamination/roughness on the portrait which made it only $45 compared to the Decius at $65. If there was a large find of these, I would suspect it would date back to the Kern to Berk sale of the OP coin. Jonathan Kern (in those pre-slab days) always had huge bags of silver you could buy by the piece or by the bag. I selected most of my coins due to interest rather than grade and considered the young Philip different from the bulk coins of that period that everyone seemed to have. I could always say Philip II had acne and my coin was the rare one that showed it. Opinion: This may be a sign that the coins did not circulate all that much as individuals but were stored by the potful so the ones we have should be free from wear.
Doug, The line you see starting fom the top of the head is a lamination crack. If you click the image to enlarge it you'll see more of these lamination cracks mostly radiating from the head. The metal mix in the planchet obviously wasn't a good one. Your 3 dot Decius Tet looks like a nice one with a good strike & little wear . The Philip II Tet is another matter. The poor young lad looks like he's suffering from the extreme acne vulgaris on this coin . Corrosion wasn't kind to this coin . I've got a kinder portrait of the kid on the Tet pictured below. This one is also a very early issue. And you're right about the bulk of these late Syro-Phoenician Tets not being heavily circulated. Most of these coins must have come from hoards. With the constant warfare induced by Roman hegemony with the Parthians, Persians, & other feudal states, it's no surprise that so much money was buried in the ground for safe keeping .
Here is a Syrian tet of the weird (according to the sources) Elagabalus. Sorry about the slightly out of focus obverse.
