A little Probus never hurt us

Just an update with a couple of nice coins that I paid about $15 each. Pretty good stuff, if you ask me. The silvering on the first is about as close to mint state as I have seen.



Probus, Antoninianus, CLEMENTIA TEMP
AR Antoninianus
Probus
Augustus: 276 - 282AD
Issued: 280AD
22.5 x 20.0mm 4.10gr 0h
O: IMP CM AVR PROBVS PF AVG; Radiate, draped and cuirassed bust, right.
R: CLEMENTIA TEMP; Probus standing right on left, holding scepter, receiving Victory on globe from Jupiter standing left on right, holding scepter.
Exergue: S, above line; XXI, below line.
Antioch Mint
RIC V-2 Antioch 920, S; Sear (2000) 11960, S.
Aorta: 2156: B87, O38, R13, T96, M1.



Probus, Antoninianus, RESTITVT ORBIS
AE Antoninianus
Probus
Augustus: 276 - 282AD
Issued: 280AD
20.5mm 3.80gr 7h
O: IMP CM AVR PROBVS PF AVG; Radiate, draped and cuirassed bust, right.
R: RESTITVT ORBIS; Probus standing left on right, holding scepter, receiving wreath from Orbis, standing right on left.
Exergue: εΔ, above line; XXI, below line.
Antioch Mint
RIC V-2, Antioch 925, εΔ; Sear (2000) 12021.
Aorta: 2190: B87, O38, R119, T80, M1.

Probus collection update in toto:

http://www.forumancientcoins.com/gallery/thumbnails.php?album=6322

Feel free to add whatever you like!

 

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Oooooh! I really like the silvering on the 1st (great reverse btw) and great sandy patina on the 2nd. 2 great finds!
Here's mine. Admittedly it needs a cleaning. I got him in an uncleaned lot. But once I ID'd him (very early in my collecting) I figured I better leave well enough alone and be pleased that I found someone whos name didn't start with Cons or Val.



Probus
276-282 CE Siscia mint
Obverse: bust of Probus disbarred with breast plate. IMP C PROBUS PF AUG
Reverse: emperor standing face to face with Concordia.

 

@Ryro looks like XXIQ?

 

I believe so.
CONCORDIA MILIT, XXIQ, Emperor and Concordia.
Is what I gather.

 

Reverse is pretty soft and rough, but a nice obverse portrait:

Billon Antoninianus
Siscia mint
Obv: IMP C PROBVS P F AVG
Rev: PAX AVG - Pax, standing, facing left, holding scepter and olive branch
XXI in exergue; T in right field
RIC 706
22mm, 4.2g.

 

The top one is very cool, especially for the price.

 

Nice!

 

Nice Probii @nicholasz219

How about an UN-silvered little jewel?


RI Probus 276-282 CE BI Ant 2.80g Cohen 768

In the Republic, coins like this would be an imatative, a fourree, or a core that lost its silver.

 

@Alegandron Lol, tell me about it. At least Probus generally has some well struck coins before circulation. I had to stop actively looking for Gallienus coins because they are so poorly struck that it was such a waste of time to bother finding nice pieces at any place besides a retail dealer.

 

@lordmarcovan Yes, that is a nice piece from your former life. Also yes in that fully silvered pieces seem to start at about $40 and go rapidly up if you are paying retail. That is why I am happy to win little auctions like this and come in way under.

@gsimonel That is a very nice portrait on your coin. I do get irritated with many coins of Probus where they are struck so well on the obverse and the reverse is half of the quality. Not sure why that happened so frequently for this emperor.

@Mat and @randygeki Thanks for the compliments, they are so welcome.

 

It was much more important that the emperor's portrait be well-presented than the reverse, so obverse dies tended to be replaced more frequently than reverse dies. No one really cared if the reverse image was soft or poorly detailed; these dies were often used until they broke.

 

There are plenty of decently made Gallienus coins but basing your Gallienus collection on grade will make it a very unrepresentative grouping. Many of the good looking, full flan coins are from an Eastern mint (Asia, Antioch) while some of the worst coins came from times and places that made some of the more popular reverses. Poorly made coins are a characteristic not of Gallienus overall but of the mints like Rome, Milan and Siscia. You must have pretty silver coins??? Seek out coins from the first period of the joint rule when the coins actually had some silver.

You will have trouble finding these Eastern coins in raggedy shape.


Early coins have better silver.


This popular type usually seems to have worn or poorly done reverses but better portraits.

Duh! Retail dealers add value to their wares by buying or sorting through a thousand coins to find the ten that their discriminating customers would be willing to buy for a premium. It is not realistic to expect any source to provide only the finest coins for only the cheapest price. There is nothing wrong with buying retail when you are a retail customer.

When I was a kid, there was a mom and pop grocery store run for decades by an old couple who took things off the shelf and handed them to you across the counter. They lived in the back of the store. They retired. My parents were friends with the local dairy delivery man. He told them that they changed their order one day. They previously had fifty quarts (glass bottles) of milk and not as many half pints (glass bottles) of cream delivered to the store each morning. On the day they retired, they called the dairy and changed their order to just one cream. They thought of themselves as wholesale customers so they should be serviced by the wholesale deliveryman. In those days, everyone could get a single bottle dropped off at the door each morning for a higher price but they continued to be treated as honored guests by the wholesale guy for the rest of their lives. Try that one today. There is nothing wrong with buying retail when you are a retail customer.

 

That's a new one on me. I was under the impression that all quinarii of Probus were laureate. Are you sure it is a quinarius?

I have an example of the RIC 925 above from the same officinal too. They used ED to avoid using Theta, which was unlucky due to being the initial letter of Thanatos.



How many of you are aware of the latest thinking that there is a fourth eastern mint operating under Probus at this time. Cyzicus, Antioch and Tripolis are the ones currently used but Dr. S. Estiot published an article about a fourth, unspecified mint which can be distinguished by a distinctive style from the other mints. She placed the plates from this article in this thread on Forvm.

http://www.forumancientcoins.com/board/index.php?topic=104599.0

The following are some of mine that would be attributed to this mint based on stylistic reasons. The facial shape is quite distinctive as is the treatment of the beard.



I need to find this one in my trays and update the image.

 

Martin, thanks for the correction. This ANT showed up 4 times in my database. Somehow, mea culpa, one came up as a Quinarius and I dragged it into the thread. It is corrected, and I appreciate you catching my mistake! Now you have me going through my Cathy King book on Quinarii to ensure of no other mistakes!

Would this one fit into the Fourth Eastern Mint?


RI Probus Æ Ant 22mm 3.75g 280CE CLEMENTIA TEMP XXI Emperor receiving Victory from Jupiter GAMMA DOT [EDIT:] Fourth Eastern Mint

 

Yes, it certainly would.

 

Thanks! I was intrugued by the "odd or unique" facial features. Reminds me of a cartoon...

 

@dougsmit I understand why retail dealers charge what they do. I actually do not just want pretty silver coins but my typical collecting threshold is to have legible legends or at least enough of it to make a clear identification. I’m not super picky about grade or slivering beyond enough to make a simple ID. Mostly that serves as a sorting function for me to help me skip past coins when I am looking at a few hundred, much like a retail dealer. Except that I keep all of my finds lol.

I don’t begrudge anyone making money, especially folks who are servicing our hobby. Retail customers with more time than money can pay the premium for their services and still feel like they came out ahead. I would prefer to spend the time and hopefully save some money for the more common stuff since I am mostly looking for mintmarks that aren’t necessarily rare.

 

@maridvnvm Thank you for sharing the Forvm article. It is very intriguing. I have to reread it, study the plates and then go and look at a pile of coins.

 

A little Probus does hurt....just ask his soldiers. He worked them so hard and without rest breaks that they pulled him off of an observation tower and hacked him to pieces. Though they did feel somewhat bad about it after they took a break from all the trench digging and emperor stabbing.