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<p>[QUOTE=&quot;dougsmit, post: 2166138, member: 19463&quot;]It hurts me a little that there is more interest in the hole than the coin.&nbsp; My first page on the type was lumped with the other Alexandrian &#039;new discoveries&#039; in 1998.&nbsp; </p><p><a href="http://www.forumancientcoins.com/dougsmith/feac74per.html" target="_blank" class="externalLink ProxyLink" data-proxy-href="http://www.forumancientcoins.com/dougsmith/feac74per.html" rel="nofollow">http://www.forumancientcoins.com/dougsmith/feac74per.html</a></p><p>When I got mine, I was aware of three but there have been a lot since then (I really don&#039;t have a number but ten seems possible).&nbsp; There may be as many of the other type with Consecratio reverse but what seems like a lifetime obverse (very unusual).&nbsp; I&#039;ll never have one of those because they are so well known in the trade as special items.&nbsp; The Libertas can show up as a sleeper.</p><p><br /></p><p>Curtis Clay is the expert on these now that Roger Bickford-Smith is gone.&nbsp; Roger&#039;s 1994 pamphlet/article showed the Consecratio and mentioned but did not illustrate the Libertas.</p><p><img src="http://www.forumancientcoins.com/dougsmith/comalex.jpg" class="bbCodeImage wysiwygImage" alt="" unselectable="on" /></p><p><br /></p><p>Curtis believes the coin may be in preparation for a visit to the city by Commodus in 192.&nbsp; I see the possibility that both types are postumous possibly dating to a time when the mint did not know who to back between Septimius and Pescennius.&nbsp; Alexandria mint coins of Pescennius Niger are turbo-rare so the decision did not take long.&nbsp; I don&#039;t see how we will ever know.&nbsp; My tendency to accept the Commodus as first of the bunch is partly due to the very odd use of R for both B and P on the reverse.&nbsp; The Alexandria Pertinax denarii are more standardly inscribed but I see no proof that the Pertinax coins were lifetime and may have been issued when the city was &#039;confused&#039; as to who would be worth supporting in the civil war.&nbsp; Septimius was very hard on cities that made the wrong choice so Alexandria got credit for being correct from the start even if a few coins to the contrary were made.&nbsp; Perhaps Septimius never knew about them???</p><p><br /></p><p>The whole idea of a denarius mint at Alexandria started in 1921 by Laffranchi who noted the (now) obvious stylistic comparison of tetradrachms and denarii.&nbsp; By the time of the publication of volume V of the British Museum Catalog, most people accepted it but the editors still placed a (?) after the city name.&nbsp; The idea of Alexandria mint coins for Pertinax, Albinus and Commodus came to me from Bickford-Smith but I have no proof one way or the other if it was original to him. </p><p><br /></p><p>I really have not kept up since Roger died.&nbsp;&nbsp; Recognition of the mints became common among quality dealers in the early 2000&#039;s and the prices pushed me out of the market for the most part.&nbsp; Roger Bickford-Smith told me before he died that he estimated the total population for all types of Alexandria mint denarii in the neighborhood of 300.&nbsp; Today, I suspect that is off by a power of ten but there are many rare ones in the group.&nbsp; Below are a few showing the some basic styles for Septimius:</p><p>[ATTACH=full]417521[/ATTACH] [ATTACH=full]417522[/ATTACH] [ATTACH=full]417523[/ATTACH] [ATTACH=full]417524[/ATTACH] [ATTACH=full]417525[/ATTACH]</p><p><br /></p><p>Below is a tetradrachm of Domna from year two (194) and a denarius showing the style suggesting the denarii were from that mint.&nbsp; I do not own a Septimius tetradrachm.</p><p>[ATTACH=full]417526[/ATTACH] [ATTACH=full]417529[/ATTACH][/QUOTE]</p><p><br /></p>

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