Constantius II

Researching this new find of mine I find that it is;

Constantius II
RIC VII Cyzicus 113
Mint *SMKA
R5 (soon to be rated R4)

 

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Nice find. Well struck and well preserved.

Don't let the R5 rating mislead you, though. R5 refers to this particular officina from this particular issue. Actually, there are many coins of this emperor and reverse type from Cyzycus. But yours is an attractive coin in good condition. Enjoy it.

 

@gsimonel I sent your response to Dane at Helvitica since he was the one who offered my initial description and stated that it would be entered into his catalog as R4. This is what he sent back.

They explained it relatively well.

There are 203 "soldiers with two standards" coins Cyzicus listed in RIC (including the additions in my XLS list). These were struck by a number of different emperors.

But of those 203, only 4 are known of Constantius II which have a star before the mintmark, so Star SMK.. something.

The officina is the mint workshop which struck the coins. Most mints had more than one workshop, in fact Antioch had up to 15 at one point in time!

On these later Roman bronzes, these workshops are denoted by a letter such as A, B, Gamma, Delta etc. for 1,2,3,4 and this is usually (but not always) at the end of the mintmark after the abbreviation for the mint.

(This was form of quality control, so if some really awful coins went into circulation, or dies were stolen and used by the thieves, the authorities knew who to blame. This form of Quality Control was introduced under Claudius II).

So a mintmark with, say, SMKB was struck in Cyzicus (SMK meaning the sacred mint of Kyzikos - the Greek name of the town) and officina 2 (B).

SMH Delta, would be Heraclea, officina 4.

SMNA would be Nicomedia, officina 1.

SMTSB would be Thessalonica, officina 2.

Lyons, Trier and London were three exceptions which come to mint - they used the first letters of "Primus=first, Secundus=second, Tertius=third and usually before the abbreviated mint name. So you get mintmarks such as PLN (first officina of London, actually they only had one!), SLG for second officina at Lyons (called "Lugdunum" back then) or STR for second officina of Trier.

Now, your coin *type*, RIC VII Cyzicus 113 with the star before the mintmark is listed *in RIC* only with star SMK gamma (officina 3) star SMK delta (officina 4) star SMKS (officina 6) but not with star SMKA (officina 1), so for some reason, they needed to use the additional officina 1 to make these, seeing as they were apparently only struck in officinae 3, 4 and 6.

Perhaps this is the amongst the first very few of this type that were ever struck and after the basic dies were engraved, they asked officina 1 to strike a few with their mark to see how they looked, then handed them over to workshops 3, 4 and 6 for the main output.

So this is why it is rare. Officina A is not in RIC and there are only a couple documented.

Does this help about what they wrote ?

best wishes

Dane

 

Both Dane and I are correct.

Your coin is both very common and very rare at the same time. It's a matter of what about the coin interests you. This is something that collectors of modern coins sometimes have difficulty wrapping their heads around initially.

At least your coin has an interesting story to go with it. I would add, though, that unlisted officinas generate interest, but turn up relatively frequently. An unlisted emperor or reverse type (from this time period) would be cause for great excitement.

So consider your coin "cool" rather than a "priceless rarity" and enjoy it for what it is: a nice example of a 1,600-year-old coin with an interesting history.

 

BTW Dane is a "she" rather than a "he" and she goes by the pseudonym of Helvetica on some boards. She also administers the Wildwinds site.

 

Hi, @Inspector43 ! As Dane demonstrates, even the most seemingly pedestrian coin can have an interesting story. I have two GLORIA EXERCITVS coins of Constantius II from Cyzicus. One is an earlier issue on a larger module with two standards between the soldiers on the reverse and the other is a later issue on a smaller module with one standard between the soldiers. They were from an uncleaned lot and they look it. I've never photographed them before (not very photogenic) but they illustrate the differences between the two modules.

The earlier issue dates from Constantius' tenure as Caesar under Constantine I and is listed in RIC vii; the later dates from Constantius' tenure as Augustus after his father's death and is listed in RIC viii. This can make for some confusion to those new to the LRBC field. Note the issues for him as Caesar have an unbroken obverse legend, whereas the legend for him as Augustus have a broken inscription. That was the convention during this period -- the Augustus had a broken inscription and the Caesar had an unbroken one.

Not only are the later issues smaller in diameter, but they are thinner. Therefore, they weigh about half of the earlier (hence half the number of standards held by the soldiers?) issues.




Constantius II, Caesar AD 324-337.
Roman billon reduced centenionalis, 2.60 g, 17.4 mm, 1 h.
Cyzicus, AD 331-334.
Obv: FL IVL CONSTANTIVS NOB C, bust of Constantius II, laureate, draped, cuirassed, right.
Rev: GLOR-IA EXERC-ITVS: Two soldiers, helmeted, draped, cuirassed, standing facing each other, each holding spear in outer hand and resting inner hand on shield; between them, two standards; in exergue, SMKΔ.
Refs: RIC vii, p. 655, 84; Cohen 104; Sear 17696.


Constantius II, Augustus AD 337-361.
Roman billon reduced centenionalis, 1.38 g, 14.2 mm, 12 h.
Cyzicus, AD 337-340.
Obv: D N CONSTAN-TIVS P F AVG, head of Constantius II, laureate, right.
Rev: GLOR-IA EXERC-ITVS: Two soldiers, helmeted, draped, cuirassed, facing front, heads toward each other, each holding inverted spear in outer hand and resting inner hand on shield; between them, one standard; in exergue, SMK[...].
Refs: RIC viii, pp. 490-91, #16, 21, 27 or 32; Cohen 102 var.; RCV 17998-18001.

 

@gsimonel @maridvnvm @Roman Collector Thanks for all the feedback. I have had this in my collection for many years. Now that I am retired and pushing Octogenarian status, I want to organize my hoard and leave my children some sort of identified and organized collection. Fortunately for me I am more interested in the historical and cultural value of these coins than I am the financial. I want to learn and capture as much detail as I can. I want to tell my family and friends - look what I found.

 

I do have a question about this coin. When I found it in my pile of uncleaned coins it was unrecognizable, just blank dirt. What you see is the after my cleaning attempt. I was concerned that I may have over cleaned it. But, I had to get enough detail to recognize it. A comment regarding that would be helpful.

 

Congrats, @Inspector43 ... fun to have so much info surrounding your coin.

I have one that is considered difficut to find. ACSearch only has one listed, not in CNG, and could not find it on Wildwinds. He is dead in this one (DIVO). Fun to have the harder-to-find versions cuz of their cool stories.


Roman Empire Principate
Constantius I Chlorus 293-306 AD
Bronze Quinarius (16 mm ; 1.41 gm) (Half-Follis)
Thesalonika mint 317-318 AD
Obv: DIVO CONSTANTIO PIO PRINCIPI ; Laureate, bearded, and veiled head, right
Rev: REQVIES OPTIMORVM MERITORVM ; Constantius seated left on curule chair raising right hand and holding scepter.
Mintmark : .TS.B.
RIC vol VII #25 Thesalonika (R5) Rare
Ex: Vaughn

 

Nice coin, especially with the silvering - congrats!

 

The DIVO CONSTANTIO coin commemorates the grandfather of Constantius II who lived until nearly two decades after the small commemorative coins were issued.

 

Since not everyone who might read this is an ancients specialist, an ancients "fan", or even an occasional aquisitor, I thought it might be helpful to point out that the officina designation characters on the majority of pieces issued from the eastern Roman mints (and occasionally at the western mints, too) are sequential letters of the Greek alphabet as it was used at the time. Additionally, they are the Greek numerals: A=1; B=2, Γ=3, Δ=4, ε=5, S=6, Z=7, H=8, Θ=9, Ι=10.
(similar to the way letters are used as Roman numerals, LXIV, etc.) Interestingly, in Greek numerals "9" as a stand-alone is typically written as "Δε" (4+5) since the Romans (and many Greeks) were very superstitious about a number of things and associated the letter theta-Θ (Greek numeral nine) with "Thanatos", the Greek word for death, so they "fudged it" with a delta+epsilon combination.
The "teens" were similarly created by adding a letter/numeral to "I", eg: IB=12, the 20's with K+numeral, 30's with Λ+numeral, etc.

 

You're really opening a huge can of worms with this question, because everyone has an opinion--many quite forceful--about uncleaned coins and how much and what kind of cleaning is acceptable.

Personally, I think you did a good job, and I see no reason to conclude that you over-cleaned it.

But ask this question on a wrong day . . .

 

Thank you. I was very careful and never intend to sell any of my coins. But, I would like to stay within some acceptable parameters.

 

Well, I think you did a good job.

 

The Constantius commemorated on this half-or-quarter follis issue was Constantius I. He was Constantine I's (the Great's) father so it is correct that he was Constantius II's grandfather. He died at York in Britannia in 306. The commemorative issue cited dates to 317-318 AD so he definitely did not live for two decades after the commemorative was issued.
I'm pretty certain that the commemoratives of this group are credited to Constantine I. Constantius II wasn't elevated to Caesar until 324 AD. Between being Caesar, 324-337, and Augustus from 337-361, he was in a high position of power for almost 40 years - all of it was after the issue of these coins which predate his elevation to Caesar.
Not too sure who you're thinking of here at two decades, but that's a quite decent specimen. There are a couple of legend varieties and a couple others who were similarly commemorated at the time including Claudius Gothicus from whom Constantine claimed descent and Maximian, his father-in-law.
I have a nicer specimen of this (I think) which I haven't gotten around to photographing, there are several varieties for each predecessor honored in this issue, but this is another example of the general type for Constantius I:

Posthumous Commemorative for
Constantius I, d. 306 AD.
"Æ3" Billon fractional follis, 18mm, 2.86g, 12h
Mint of Rome, 317 AD.
Obv: DIVO CONSTANTIO PIO PRINCIP
laureate and veiled head of Constantius I right
Rx: REQVIES OPTIMOR MERIT
Constantius seated left on curule chair; raising hand and holding transverse scepter // R Q.
RIC VII 105; SRCV 16430; SR ('88) 3693; VM 41

 

These were issued by several mints. We saw Thessalonika and Rome above so here is Siscia. Constantine I issued the type in honor of three ancestors of his. Constantius was his father; Maximianus, his father in law; Claudius II was claimed as a distant relative. Some today say there is no evidence for the last one and Constantine was claiming him for political reasons.

 

Even though it's getting us a ways off topic, here's a commemorative of Maximian, from Siscia:


Bronze Nummus (a.ka. Follis) of Maximian (Herculius), A.D. 286-305; 307-310
Siscia Mint, A.D. 312
(Part of the "Divo" series minted during the joint reign of Constantine the Great and Licinius I)
Obverse: DIVO GAL VAL MAXIMIANO.
Reverse: FORTI FO-RTVNAE - Fortuna, standing, facing left, holding rudder on globe with right hand and cornucopia in left.
SIS in exergue; star within crescent above A in right field.
RIC 226.
27x24 mm, 4.2 g.

 

Indeed, and Constantine issued coins to honor Claudius, too. It's easy to get such coins confused with ones issued by Constantine to honor the divine Constantius I. Note the similarity:


Divus Claudius II Gothicus. Died AD 270.
Roman billon half follis, 1.31 g, 15.3 mm, 8 h.
Siscia mint. Struck under Constantine I, AD 317-318.
Obv: DIVO CLAVDIO OPTIMO IMP, laureate and veiled head right.
Rev: REQVIES OPTIMO-RVM MERITORVM, Divus Claudius seated left on curule chair, raising right hand and holding scepter in left; SIS in exergue.
Refs: RIC VII 43; Cohen 245; RCV 16398.

 

The Siscia quarter-folles are an interesting and relatively easy "short set" to collect - they're only tangentially related to the Constantinian commemoratives of 317-318 and predate them by half a decade. There are a couple of legend varieties for each of the three Augusti for whom they were struck.
Another fractional-follis set would be the "pagan" issues of Maximin II like this fairly common Apollo from Antioch.

A few of the types in this batch are scarce-to-rare however and not as easy to find as this type and a couple others.

Anonymous Pagan Issue, Time of Maximinus II
Æ 3 - ¼ Follis,16mm, 1.79g, 11h
Mint of Antioch, 310-311 AD.
Obv: GENIO ANTIOCHENI
Genius seated facing, river-god swimming at feet.
Rx: APOLLONI SANCTO
Apollo standing left pouring from patera and holding lyre; in field right: A; in ex: SMA.
(Formerly thought to be Julian’s, now known to be Maximinus’)
RIC VI --, SR --, VM --, Vagi 2954