I have looked for an example of this coin for 20 years and finally found one. It's not much to look at; but it is pretty rare. Constantius II A.D. 348- 350 18x19mm 2.0g D N CONSTAN-TIVS P F AVG; pearl diademed, draped and cuirassed bust. FEL TEMP REPARATIO; radiate phoenix on rocky nest. In ex. RT RIC VIII Rome -- This coin is not listed in RIC without star in left field of reverse cf. RIC VIII Rome 141 What is special about this coin is that the phoenix is on a rocky nest—a type only issued from Rome. I first became aware of this type in 2003 after ready Failmezger’s Roman Bronze Coins: From Paganism to Christianity 294-364 A.D. His example is below. The FEL TEMP phoenix reverse has three different types. The first, is the phoenix on a globe-- the globe represents the cosmos. The second type is a phoenix on a mound/pyre. You see different descriptions because it is not known for sure if the phoenix is standing on a rocky mound or maybe emerging from a pyre. The third type is the rocky nest from Rome. I found the rocky nest example mixed in a group of coins from CNG. You can see the obverse on the bottom, second from the right.
Congratulations and it’s nice looking do well worth the time it took you to get it. I’ve been looking for a specific 1927 coin for 8 years now. All I can tell myself is, keep looking and you’ll find it one day.
Congratulations! One measure of a collection is how long it took to find some of the coins (or other objects) included. That must've been quite a thrill to receive the coin & see the reverse (assuming you didn't know until it arrived). Since I finally just got my copy of Failmezger, I'll contribute some relevant text from pp. 96 & 113 (this coin is his type 413c): I'm not sure if I've ever waited 20 years to find a coin... But here's a very specific piece of numismatic literature that took me 20-30 years to find -- that is, find again, after losing my original copy: Colosseum Coin Exchange Mail Bid Sale 59 + Fixed Price List 91 (22 November 1991, Ira Teitelbaum, Hazlet, NJ). Ref: Fitzwilliam (A-D); Gengerke –. Prov: Ex Libraries Joel Malter (1921-2006) & BCD Duplicates. To most, relatively meaningless. But Lot #2 (Aegina Drachm) is my first auction win, and 3rd or 4th coin ever (back when I bought exactly one per year). When I was still a teenager someone decided it wasn't worth keeping my old ancient coin fixed price lists and mail bid sales. I had been looking for another copy almost ever-since. As one can imagine, not easy to find a specific no. from the >127 MBS and >133 FPLs produced by CCE! It was a surprise find in a group lot of BCD Library Duplicates (I knew there was a CCE in there, but wasn't even sure which date I needed). Special bonus: Ex Malter, who owned a legendary library, auctioned in 2006. (He literally died within hours of auctioning it: https://www.coinbooks.org/esylum_v13n25a03.html.)
Also -- I'm curious -- how important is it that yours was found without the star? Is this one more, less, equally desirable? Since you note this var. isn't in RIC, I'm assuming that means rare? Any other examples known? Thank goodness this lot found you! It would be sad for this coin to sit in someone's pile of unattributed common AE3s for (another?) 30 years!
Yes, the rarity is increased since there is not a star and I don't know of any other examples; but somebody probably has one. The next series in RIC (see #144) doesn't have a star; but none of this type are listed, only phoenix on globe. However, this type of rarity is probably only appreciated by a few people worldwide. I can't imagine that there are more than 9 or 10 people that would even pay a premium for the rocky nest with star.
I just realized that this coin was owned by Glenn Simonelli and he posted it 2 years ago. He didn't note the absence of the star though. here's a better pic of the ex-Failmezger coin and an example in Vienna
Full Disclosure: I am absolutely ignorant on this particular subject, however, I'm a zealot for research and SHARING same. I'm not going to be an expert but at least I have a minimal working knowledge and an increase in my numismatic vocabulary now that I am attempted absorbing the information in this particular thread. Thanks to all you contributed.
Good find! Interesting, I see that the lot doesn't mention him as consignor, but I wonder if the whole lot was his. He didn't seem to post that particular coin on his website. (Maybe some of the others are there -- if it matters.) For anyone interested: Glenn Simonelli's "Coins of the Roman Empire" and "My collection of Bronze Coins of Constantine the Great" (there are also earlier archived versions that have some minor pages now absent: https://web.archive.org/web/20230000000000*/https://www.feltemp.com/)
