Roman Imperial for the compulsive type collector?

I saw this question posed on Reddit a while ago and was just pondering it again - it would be fun to see what the other members here think.

The redditor was a collector of modern stuff, and innocently asked how they could go about building a Roman type set, and was blown away to learn that for most emperors, this is not a feasible task.

Which got me thinking - Suppose I had decades and a reasonably high level (but not unlimited) budget, which personages would I be able to complete a full type set for Roman Imperial coins?

This means:
- Every denomination
- Every reverse type
- Every major portrait variant (like left vs right, not with/without drapery on far shoulder)
- Major legend variants but not obscure things like rare TRP / IMP number combos
- Every mint, but not necessarily every officina or control mark
- Excluding provincials because there are just too many

Excluding the obvious ones with fewer than 5 "types" (e.g. Germanicus, Britannicus, Manila Scantilla, Didia Clara) who do we think it might be possible for?

My gut tells me that Tiberius and Caligula might be within reach (for a massive budget spread over decades), and likewise with short-lived individuals like Otho, Aelius, Didius Julianus, Gordian I/II.

Anyone have any insights? Has anyone been crazy enough to get started on an attempt?

 

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One of the Severan women with few types. Julia Soaemias, Julia Maesa, or Julia Mamaea, for example.

 

Wouldn't it make more sense to abandon the modern collecting mentality of 'sets' and buy coins that you like rather than coins you think you need to fit some artificial definition of a set? If you want to collect ancient coins, use rules that apply to ancient coins and not Whitman blue coin folders.

 

@Valentinian has a list of possible VERY late Roman type sets here:

http://augustuscoins.com/ed/ricix/typesets.html

His type set may not be as exhaustive as the OP describes, but it offers a methodological and feasible approach to some coinage.

 

I think it would depend on how persnickity you were about your "Type" set definition. I think most emperors have coins with but a few examples known if you want to get really granular. For ancients, effectively every die can be labeled a "type" if you followed US standards, (there are two leaves instead of three under the wing...). So, depending on how picky you want to get it could be doable. A friend has a collection of Domitian and he has quite a few coins that are unpublished and he is only aware of 1-4 examples he has ever seen in 40 years of collecting. I bet every emperor is the same except for the very short lived emperors.

So, it depends on LEVEL of type you consider unique. At a "reasonable" level, most short lived emperors would be doable with enough time and money, but I am unsure about Trajan, Hadrian, AP, SS, etc. if it would even be possible unless you went a step "higher" level in definition of "type".

Just my opinion.

 

Some Severan women are feasible because there are a limited number of reverse types. Especially Julia Paula and Aquilia Severa. But for Julia Maesa, there are very obscure Eastern types that would be extremely difficult to acquire even for collectors with a large budget, because an example might never appear on the market in their lifetimes. Here's one:

Julia Maesa. AR denarius, Eastern, 218–20 CE; 19mm, 2.80g, 1h. BMCRE p. 578 ✝︎ (Venus standing l., holding child, shield set on base), Eauze 399, RIC 275 note var (shield set on base)., RSC 52b var (same as previous). Obv: IVLIA • – MAESA AVG; draped bust right. Rx: VENVS – VICTRIX; Venus standing front, head l., with outstretched r. arm holding a statuette of Victory in r. hand, and holding transverse spear in l. hand, leaning l. elbow on shield set on helmet.

This is perhaps the third known example, the other two in the Stirling (1933) and Eauze (1985) hoards.

So it becomes a problem of definition. How does the collector define "complete"? A complete set of Julia Maesa denarii from the Rome mint only can be acquired fairly easily if it's just a matter of filling holes. Or as @dougsmit suggested, disabuse oneself of the notion that a set needs to be objectively "complete", and buy what you like.

One of the greatest things about collecting ancient coins is that it's possible to own something truly special, such as the third known example of a coin type, for only a few hundred dollars. By contrast, one of five known examples of the 1913 Liberty Head Nickel (although there's possibly a sixth) sold in August 2018 for "only" $4,560,000.

 

..ahahha...man...its hard enough to try and collect 'all' the Roman emperors 'period'...

 

A US type set rarely includes commemoratives. Wouldn't the task be doable for many emperors if the goal is to get just typical reverses of their reign in silver and bronze?

 

I guess it depends on the way you draw the line between "typical" and "commemorative". There are many rare reverses that were minted as part of the standard emissions. Do they count as commemoratives just because they were likely struck in smaller quantities than the more common ones?

 

The standard among Norwegian modern coin collectors, is to call this a «variant». I think that is a better genre.
This whole Whitman-folder-complete concept is a racket, in my opinion. I wholeheartedly agree with Dougs post above.

But I still want a full set of emperors.....

 

There's a plethora of "persnickity" and no paucity of different preferences regarding collections...& that's for both ancients & moderns!!!

 

Macrinus would be my suggestion for an Emperor.

Set, Group, Collection or whatever you choose to call it is fine by me, it wouldn't be my collection so why would my opinion matter.

 

I also wholeheartedly agree with what Doug says about the benefits of abandoning the modern mindset in collecting ancients. The buy-what-you-like mindset is what makes ancients fun. However, in the interest of answering your question Finn, I think that it might be possible with coins of Nerva to put together something that a modern collector might recognize as a set.

 

Well, yeah, but my point was to ponder how many people within the Imperial set would actually be possible to compile such a set for. And yeah, it's a tricky thing to define because at times it can really come down to each engraver's personal style. The person asking had no real idea what they were asking, but the way I understood it is if it's possible to collect "all" of an emperor's coins to the extent that one cannot see an example of any coin from that emperor and not have one too.

The especially tricky thing once you get to the Flavian, Nerva-Antonine and Severan dynasties can be illustrated by one of my coins



Here we have the obverse M ANTONINVS AVG GERM SARM
Reverse, jupiter seated TR P XXXI IMP VIIII COS III PP

There is this type minted just a few months earlier when he still had only IMP VIII - arguably a variant of the same type (not my coin - Roma)


And then there is the more common with entirely different legends, minted six years earlier (not my coin - CNG)

Obv: M ANTONINVS AVG TR P XXV
Rev: COS III

Would this be considered the same type, or a new one? That's why I consider the more prolific emperors to be essentially impossible to "complete" because of rabbit holes like this one.

Then there are the uber-rare ones that only have a handful of types- easy enough if you can find them all.

One that really jumped to mind is Caligula - 99% of the time you see anyone post an imperial Caligula, it's a Vesta as, a SPQR OB CIVES SERVATOS sestertius, one of the handful of denarii, or more rarely a Three Sisters or ADLOCVT sestertius. There aren't many more types than those - makes me wonder if, given a couple decades and about a million bucks, it might be possible to get them all in one place.

 

Agreed. I have considered that possibility myself. Not that many coins, but it would still be a pricy full set.

 

I agree with Doug and Curtis on the "collect what you like" rather than "collect that because it is a set and a set is what you want" aspect.

That said, at some point I had the idea of putting together all and every type of denarii I could find of Plautilla, taking in account obverse legends, portraits (and hairdo), and reverses. I think I made it.
But then what ?
Quinarii are out of reach, bronzes are so rare and pricey I couldn't find a single one to my liking, and provincials are so numerous that I gave up



I've sold most of them now

Q

 

Interesting! I have trouble imagining an Imperial bronze of Plautilla NOT to my liking. She came and went during a period when the AE coins of the family are all rare.

 

Blasphemy

 

There’s a legend that some guy did it back in the 1800s, but I think it’s apocryphal. Some coins are simply impossible to get, like Domitian II

 

Even a worn sestertius of Plautilla will cost a mint, but her PIETAS AVGG and VENVS VICTRIX middle bronzes come up now and again at reasonable prices.

Considerably rarer, almost never seen, are her two other middle bronze types, CONCORDIA AVGG (seated) and PROPAGO IMPERI.

I had a silver quinarius of Plautilla, which went to the BM in 1992 with the rest of my post-193 first collection, and is now visible in their online collection. That coin is interesting not only for the rare denomination, but for its VENVS FELIX rev. type, which appears only here in Plautilla's coinage.

Cucumbor,

I recognize from your photo that I am now the owner of your Plautilla drachm of Caesarea, purchased from Jacquier 48, 18 Sept. 2020, lot 284!