2 days ago I was browsing a site and saw this coin. It brought back to mind a recurring theme of late. It seems I can go years without seeing particular coins I am interested in and then all of a sudden several appear seemingly all at once. I am not sure what is responsible for this phenomenon but it is certainly is interesting. This coin is a case in point. Several months ago I came upon an auction on Heritage for a Domitian RIC 72 from the Morris collection. It was the first time in 4 years that I saw one come up for auction. So naturally I pursued it and won it. It is supposedly R2-very few examples known. I believed this because I had never seen one come to market until the Morris collection example. A couple of months later another example appeared at Heritage and sold for a very respectable price. It commanded quite a lot of attention. I did not buy this one since as much as I would have liked to, I cannot buy every coin I like. A couple of months ago I was checking the contents of a new auction house listing and spotted a D72 that was...you guessed it-misattributed. It seemed to go unnoticed and so I was able to get it for a very low bid. Upon receiving the coin I realized that it was in much better condition than the auction photo indicated. The coin is probably worth 5 times what I paid for it. Then a couple of days ago I stumbled on my latest example. The seller has given me permission to use his photo. So this is the story of how I was able to grab 3 examples of an R2 Domitian. I am no closer to understanding why these suddenly appeared all at once. In the past few days I have added some nice rare Flavian denarii. It seems I hit a dry spell for a few months and then all of a sudden virtual buckets of rare Flavians have appeared. This was the first one I bought. I think the real name is pretty much common knowledge by now but I will not post it here just in case. Obv: IMP CAES DIVI VESP F DOMITIAN AVG P M, laureate head of Domitian right Rev: TR P COS VII-DES VIII P P, pulvinar of Jupiter and Juno, draped, surmounted by thunderbolt. RIC II 72 (R2), BMC--, RSC--, Cohen-- 2019 August 18 Ancient Coin Selections from the “Morris Collection” Part II Monthly Online Auction #271933 Lot # 35169 This one is actually a glossy black. The coin is near ef at least. It also looks much much better in hand. The photo flattens it out too much. The relief is quite high and the details are excellent. Sometimes a very dark toning can gove a flash impression. Domitian AR denarius 81 CE (Group 4) Obv: IMP CAES DIVI VESP F DOMITIAN AVG PM; Head laureate right Rev: TR P COS VII DES VIII P P; Seat draped above winged thunderbolt. RIC 72 (R2). Zeus Numismatics Prime 1 Lot 282 November 17, 2019 And here is the one I just bought... Domitian AR denarius 81 CE (Group 4) 18 mm 3.16 g Obv: IMP CAES DIVI VESP F DOMITIAN AVG PM; Head laureate right Rev: TR P COS VII DES VIII P P; Seat draped above winged thunderbolt. RIC 72 (R2). Lazooro on Delcampe January 11, 2019 It seems to that all of these are from the same obverse die. Interestingly the second and third coin appear to have the same reverse die as well. The reverse die for the first example is different from the other 2. The die matches are to be expected for a rare coin such as this. Please post your coins that you felt you needed or wanted more than one example.
I bought this lot of 5 Manus Dei , Antioch mint, just because I like the design. lot of 10 Roman Republic Janus Asses,added some more since I bought these
Great find, again Orfew. With that luck you had perhaps better buy a lottery ticket ;-) I don't have more than one of the same type. I'd love to have one and more of the eid mar denarius though. But then again, I did not win the lottery...
