I’m having difficulty fully attributing this Philip AE of Antioch. The dealer inserts were incorrect (I believe it was just an honest mistake) and I don’t have much experience with these. So far I believe I have an obverse die match to the BMC 122 coin on wildwinds. The tell was the damage/marking where the “P” should be on PHILIPPVS. My coin: Wildwinds: I’m just having trouble on the reverse not being able to find a match for the lettering of my coin unless I’m just reading it incorrectly. CAESA-NTIOC-HICOL I can find many reverses that are similar but not exact. Anyone have experience with these? Looks like there may be more variations than I’m used to. The inserts had some references but said this was Claudius Gothicus which I didn’t notice until getting it home. No matter, I wanted the coin anyway.
My die match (obverse) pair are different from yours PHILIP I AE24 OBVERSE: IMP M IVL PHILIPPVS AVG, radiate, draped, cuirassed bust right REVERSE: ANTIO-C H-ICOL to left and right of vexilium surmounted by eagle, between two legionary eagles, SR in exergue Struck at Pisidia, Antiochia, 244-249 AD 6.91g, 24mm SNG France 1259/1262
A problem with common coins is they tend to be made from several die sets each of which can have variations from what we might wish to be standard. I do not have a Philip but show a Volusian and Amelian of the series. My Claudius II seems to match the ticket n many ways. I bought the coin from the late Don Zauche several years ago. Don always had coins that did not sell in Pegasi sales offered at a considerable discount. I wish I could say this was a simple ticket mix up but my coin weighs only 8.2g (a reasonable weight for a coin this late) so it is not the coin. Instead, it was an error by Pegasi: https://www.acsearch.info/search.html?id=3462208 Was it wrong in the Hoffman collection? That would be interesting to know. It seems he had several of these so a ticket swap would not be hard. https://www.acsearch.info/search.ht...s=1&thesaurus=1&order=0¤cy=usd&company= Mystery coins can be fun.
Thanks John! Looks like I have a die match to both the obv and rev of your linked coin. I think that’s a first for me. @dougsmit i think you’re right about a swapped tag. I was excited to have something different and didn’t even pay attention to the obv legend indicating PHILIPPVS. I suppose mine is a Hoffman coin but can’t be certain. I don’t know much about Hoffman anyway and would have to research more.
It's easier to find die matches among provincial coins. The mints in small Roman towns often served only a few thousand people, so there was no need for an overabundance of legal tender. (The Romans couldn't afford to mint billions of useless coins like the US Cent.) Some provincial issues had such short runs that only one die pair was used, or an obverse die and several different reverse dies, as in the case of your coin and the one on Wildwinds. If you like hunting for die matches, start with Provincials!
Plug for Dane's lists: http://www.catbikes.ch/coinstuff/coins-ric.htm Down the page is a link to a spreadsheet "Coins with Three or Four Standards" from Nicaea (NIKAEWN), Antioch (Pisidia) and Juliopolis. Many interesting legend variants not easily found in standard references. Eugene
