Broken, Battered Lot from eBay - My First Two Elephants - Titus & Philip

I really like poorly-photographed and poorly-described eBay lots. You just never know what you're going to get, exactly. Recently I got seven scruffy silver Romans for $50 (free shipping), with "Ancient Coins" as the title and "All 7 Ancient Coins" was the full description. Photos were off-color and blurry. Seller feedback was around 86%. But I saw two elephants and I've always wanted an elephant. Seller shipped promptly, although all of them were crammed together in a tiny plastic bag.

I've never owned a "broken ancient" and found them far less objectionable than I thought...and there's the elephants. Anyway, I thought I'd run 'em by you (sorry my obverse/reverse photos are out of sequence - oops):







The Titus elephant is very pitted and underweight (2.29 grams) - not sure if its a counterfeit or depleted from pitting and the ravages of time. The flan is quite small (17 mm). I think this is: RIC 22a, BMC 43, BN 37, C 303 Obv: IMPTITVSCAESVESPASIANAVGPM - Laureate head right / TRPIXIMPXVCOSVIIIPP - Elephant advancing left. January - July 80 (Rome). (dirtyoldbooks.com description)

The coin next to it in the group photo (top right in first photo, top left in second photo) was, I thought, a run-of-the-mill Vespasian, but it too is a also a Titus: 73 AD. T CAES IMP VESP CENS, laureate head right / PONTIF TRI POT, Titus seated right, holding branch and sceptre. RSC 168; RIC 556. At 2.43 grams it is light too, perhaps a fake. It is hard to photograph because of a mottled toning, but in hand it looks pretty good for the grade.

Are my Tituses fake? Are these plausible weight ranges for these issues? I'd love to hear your opinions.

The others I am more confident about in terms of being genuine. The Severus Alexander / Annona might be my favorite - so many of his coins have what I find to be unsatisfactory portraits, but this one is rather nice, despite a bit of corrosion (this appears to be on the surface and not coming up from the core; I don't think it is a fourrée, but I could be wrong).

The Valerian antoninianus is on a thick flan of fairly debased silver but good weight (4.23 grams). The portrait is blurry, but otherwise it isn't too bad for this often-crude type.

The broken ones are obviously broken, but all three of them have full portraits, and almost-full reverse types (with the elephant being complete except for perhaps the very end of his trunk). I really like the elephant. In the seller's photos I thought it was a Phillip II example, but in hand the portrait is, I'm fairly certain, his dad Philip I (trace of beard, bigger beak). Herennia Etruscilla and Gordian III have, I think, very nice portraits, preserved thanks to those "lucky breaks."

I am pretty pleased with this lot, though I realize this sort of junk isn't to everybody's taste. But at $7.14 a piece, these fit within in my budget. And I got some elephants!

 

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Some nice pick-ups there for a good price, nice score.

 

Excellent for the price!!!!

 

Not bad!