Hello ladies and gents, One of the coins Santa Claus brought me is this Antoninus Pius Libertalitas denarius Even if I recently discovered Greek coins, I won't refuse a 1st or 2nd century Denarius. Not yet under the Christmas three, but I already started to attribute them. This would be RIC 234 Obverse Legend: ANTONINVS AVG PIVS P P TR P XVII Type: Head of Antoninus Pius, laureate, right Reverse Legend: LIBERALITAS VII COS IIII Type: Liberalitas, draped, standing left, emptying coins out of cornucopiae, held in both hands What bothers me is the reverse legend break LIBERALIT - AS VII COS IIII. All the other examples I found for this coin don't have this split and "LIBERTALITAS" is unbroken. (yes, a different quality, no arguments here) Is this normal for Antoninus Pius denarii? (normal as in common)
The mint during the Antonine period did not have a standard way of breaking inscriptions. Basically, the engraver put in the inscription however it would fit around the devices. Such variations don't warrant a separate catalog number in RIC or indicate a different emission from the mint.
Thank you @Roman Collector , helpful as always. I was only puzzled because all the examples from here http://numismatics.org/ocre/id/ric.3.ant.234 and all the other examples I found online have the "correct" break. I won this coin "by mistake", I put a small pre-bid on it as I knew I'm not online when the auction for it is live, and realized I won it when I got the invoice with it included, a few hours later
