I am going to inflict another FEL TEMP hut on you. I bought this because it was interesting to me for a few reasons. I am going to bore you all by going through everything about them that I find interesting. Firstly the coin.:- Constantius II, AE2 Obv:– D N CONSTANTIVS P F AVG, Pearl diademed, draped & cuirassed bust left holding globe Rev:– FEL TEMP REPARATIO, Helmeted soldier, spear in left hand, advancing right, head left; with his right hand he leads a small bare-headed figure from a hut beneath a tree. The spear points up and to the right Minted in Rome; (//R*B). 348 A.D. - 350 A.D. Reference:– RIC VIII Rome 139 var (139 is rated R, not listed with this officina for Constantius but is known for Constans) So let's start with the elephant in the room. The coin suffers from a double strike. The double strike is lateral and seems to be around the centre of the coin leading to the flan having been stretched in the process. Interestingly (to me at least) we end up with both strikes being relatively clear but shifted.. This means that the devices are clear enough though with problems and the reverse legend has what appears to be an extra letter between the R and the E of REPARATIO on the reverse. The exe has got an issue too with the * in the R * B having been distorted to the point that it can't be recognised. Due to the wonders of digital manipulation it is easy enough to remove the double strike from the image to see what the coin should look like. I have simply cut the right hand part of the image and shifted it across to the correct placement. It would have been a nice enough looking coin. Hut coins of Constantius are generally much scarcer than those of Constans. This follows though in Rome too. For this issue (R * Officina) the mint was operating 6 officinae and used the marks P B T Q E S. This mixes Lating and Greek letters for use for the Officina. Rather than using P S T Q V VI or A B G D E S they chose to mix up the letters. I don't recall this being done in any other period. Does anyone know different? Examples are listed in RIC for all Officinae for Constans (RIC VIII Rome 140) and are all rated common. Here is officina 6. Examples are listed for all Officinae for Constantius except for B and all are rated as Rare. P and S are cited in Copenhagen while T Q and E and cited from sales and hoards as they didn't appear in any museum collections. The type turning up for B is therefore not unexpected but still a decent find. I did obtain an officina S example quite recently. Martin
That's pretty cool Martin! Looks like they minted it on one of the "souvenir penny" machines with that crazy long flan.
I must admit that I am struggling to think of what happened in the striking process to produce this coin. Anyone with any thoughts?
