Here is a coin I recently acquired. Of course, I've been wanting a coin of Julius Caesar since I got into collecting, but they are quite expensive, especially the portrait coins. That's why I jumped at this one when I saw it come up on VCoins for an affordable (for me) price. It isn't the nicest, but it does still retain the basic details, and most importantly for me, Caesar's name is clearly featured. The interesting thing about this coin is that the reverse is double struck. And I noticed upon closer examination that apparently, the reverse was struck, at first, with an obverse die. You can see the elephant's feet and the snake's head (barely) and the obscured letters spelling Caesar's name. I wonder how this happened! It appears that they accidentally used the wrong die first, and then stamped the correct one over top. Didn't they strike coins using both dies at once? In which case I suppose, some poor member of Caesar's legion must have been having a bad day and mistakenly put obverse dies in both positions. Does anyone else have an idea about how this might have occured, and does anyone else have any similarly miss-struck coins?
Interesting coin. My best guess would be a flip-over double strike where the elephant side completely obscured the Pontifical implements side. I have a couple of flip-over double strikes. This mite has both features on both sides. I bought this coin a few years ago. I took pictures and rotated. The two lines outside of the dot border on the reverse are obverse features. I see a few traces of the reverse on the obverse. I liked this picture because it shows obverse features on the reverse. This is not my coin, but I suspect the nose on the reverse is incuse due to a die clash.
I agree with @rrdenarius ... my first thought was flipover double-strike. I have a similar one: RR Pulcher Mallius Mancinus Urbinius 111-110 BCE AR Den TRIGA S 176 Cr 299-1a RR Clodius Pulcher T Mallius AR Den 111-110 BCE ERROR Flipover Double-Strike Roma Triga Cr 299-1b S 176 And I do have your Caesar, it has AE deposits, probly from the hoard. RR Julius Caesar Elephant AR Denarius 49 BCE Traveling Mint trampling snake-Pontificates Sear 1399 Craw 443-1
Interesting. So you think what happened is, they struck the coin, then flipped it over and struck it again? (possibly because the first strike was so far off center.) If that were the case, I would have expected to see some trace of the pontificate elements in the new obverse but I suppose it could be that the new strike obscured them entirely. I know it makes mine less desirable from a collector's standpoint, but little errors like that I find kind of intriguing and interesting. Gives the coin a bit of character if you know what I mean. Someday, though, I'd like to get a nicer Caesar/elephant like yours!
I'm not saying this is THE answer but a thought struck me that the first strike might have been with two flans stuck together. When the workers noticed that, perhaps they separated the pair and reused the flans separately. Flipovers are interesting. Of course my favorite related error is the Magnentius brockage restruck normally so it has one obverse, two normal reverse strikes (one on each side) and one incuse reverse.
Tiberius (14 37 A.D.) AR Denarius O: TI CAESAR DIVI AVG F AVGVSTVS, Laureate head right, R: PONTIF MAXIM, Female figure seated right, holding sceptre and branch. Lugdunum Mint 3.75g 19mm RIC 26; BMC 34; RSC 16
That's an interesting idea. In that case there ought to be an equivalent double-stamped reverse out there somewhere! That last coin has got a lot of things going on! I wonder why they didn't just fold and flatten it, and start fresh.
