A new solidus: Valentinian I

I don't know why you seem to be so invested in sowing doubt in a case where -- out of all the cases where it might be justified! -- it doesn't really exist. Yes, I was originally reluctant to buy a solidus without a provenance, but now it has a very good and well-documented one! I think several others have commented to confirm that the 1966 photo was of a plaster cast, that any differences between the photos are attributable to that fact (as well as to the low resolution of the older photo), and that, even despite this fact, the two photos are close to 100% identical -- considerably closer than some other comparisons of coin photos vs. plaster cast photos posted by @Curtis. I have already explained almost ad nauseam, and others have confirmed, all the reasons why my coin clearly = the Maison Vinchon coin, and why any scenario in which they might be two different coins is extraordinarily implausible given the close temporal and geographic proximity involved here between the Maison Vinchon sale and the original formation of the collection from which Odysseus acquired my coin. With no sign whatsoever of the coin being on the market at any time in the intervening 55-year period.

As for your statement that "With plaster casts moving around do you believe it's hard to make a forgery?," you're assuming without any basis that such casts were preserved after the photography was done. Furthermore, you are ignoring the obvious point, already just made by @Curtis, that any new die made from the plaster cast used for the 1966 auction photo (assuming arguendo that the cast was preserved), and any new coin struck from such a die, would almost certainly not look close enough to the original coin to be confused with it. It would be like a photocopy of a photocopy, and degraded as such.

Finally, regarding your point that "There are at least one thousand catalogs before WWII with better photography than Vinchon. If the coin is rare you have good chances to find it elsewhere": I think the best response to that is that if my solidus, or even a different specimen of the same exact type, had been sold at any time (other than in 1966), between 1900 and the publication of Depeyrot II in 1996, or had been included in a major published museum or other collection, it would have been captured in Depeyrot itself.

As I mentioned above, the Depeyrot catalog was based on his personal review of, and compilation of a database from, at least a couple of thousand illustrated auction catalogs selling late Roman gold during that 95-year period, as well as other published collections and his personal examination of the BNF collection, among others. See the attached explanation from Depeyrot's introduction regarding his database (it's in French), together with a couple of sample pages from his list of catalogs and collections forming his database (which one doesn't need to read French to understand).

As I also already pointed out, my coin, specified in Depeyrot as sold at the Maison Vinchon auction in 1966, was the only example of the particular type that he found from the 3rd officina, with one other example, from the 10th officina, sold at a Hirsch auction in Munich in 1973. Note also that this type, from any officina, is not included in the list of close to 40 different types of Valentinian I solidi from Antioch set forth in RIC IX, published in 1951. Nor is there any evidence whatsoever that any more examples of the type have shown up on the market between 1996 and Odysseus's recent acquisition of the old collection of the person who must be assumed to have bought my coin at the Maison Vinchon 1966 auction.

In short, there is not a "good chance" of finding my coin, or another coin of the same type, elsewhere. Rather, the chances would be almost infinitesimal.

I think we're pretty much beating a dead horse here, and I'm not inclined to try defend my position further even if you still have doubts. After all, I never did like arguing without getting paid for it, and I'm retired!

 

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Today I received an original copy of the 1966 Maison Vinchon catalog, purchased from Julien Cougnard of Odysseus Numismatique, who had an extra. The photographs in it are much clearer than the ones in the copy I found online, and leave no doubt that Lot 257 is the same coin as the one I purchased. Not that I really had any doubt. As discussed previously, the only apparent difference is the extended "L" in Valentinian on the obverse of the catalog photo, and I think the only reasonable explanation for that is the one that M. Cougnard offered: the extended portion represented some sort of accretion (or, to use the technical term, "Schmutz") that has since been removed.

To refresh recollections, the solidus as it looks now:



A better copy of the catalog entry from 1966, Lot 257:



With the next lot:




The entire column:

 

Beautiful coin with nice warm golden color. Congrats and many more!

 

Pretty stunning coin, great details.