What is the significance of a countermark like this?

Maybe I found it? RPC has a countermark database that I am not especially good at navigating, but I found a laurel in an oval countermark found on Antioch AEs:

https://rpc.ashmus.ox.ac.uk/countermark/499

That No. 2 example sure looks a lot like yours. The RPC number is 499, and the all-important Howgego GIC number is 379. It took me a while to figurer out "GIC" is the same as the Howgego number (I'm slow on the uptake).

Here's the whole database starting from page I (of 26!):

https://rpc.ashmus.ox.ac.uk/countermark

You can get a general idea of scarcity from the number of examples in RPC (and Howgego). That laurel in an oval countermark you have is rather scarce (3 examples in RPC). The laurel in a rectangle is far more common (52 examples in RPC); here is my rectangle:


Trajan/Hadrian Æ 27
(c. 102-114 A.D. / cm see note)
Syria, Seleucis & Pieria Antiochia ad Orontem
[ΑΥΤΟΚΡ] ΚΑΙϹ ΝΕΡ ΤΡΑΙΑ[ΝΟϹ] ϹΕΒ[ΓΕΡΜ ΔΑΚ] laureate head left / SC within
laurel wreath, BI below.
RPC III, 3595; McAlee 487(m).
(12.98 grams / 27 x 25 mm)
eBay Nov. 2020
Countermark Notes: Laurel branch incuse in 5 x 4 mm rectangle, Howgego 378.
According to Howgego, the laurel branch countermark appears as an undertype on a Bar Kochba bronze, indicating that it was applied prior to 132-135 AD.
https://www.acsearch.info/search.html?id=930871

 

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