JA's LRB's

well, i just purchased a little bargain bin honorius with some spare cash i had.

thanks a lot JA.

 

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Hey man, ya gotta have Honorius. The bargain bin is the best place to get your Theodosian Dynasty coins. Don't be fooled by high retail - nobody wants them except me, Doug, and Warren.

 

Here's a wonderfully wrong hybrid, masquerading as a common coin.



Looks like an ordinary VOTA type of Constantine II, right? Except for the fact that the princes Constantine II and Crispus always got a reverse legend referring to them, ie, CAESARVM NOSTRORVM and variations thereof. Also, during the run of this issue, only VOT X was commemorated on their coins. The reverse of this coin actually belongs to Constantine I, who received the legend DN CONSTANTINI MAX AVG and VOT XX.

This coin is in fact a mule of the reverse of RIC VII Trier 454 (Constantine I) and obverse 459 (Constantine II PROVIDENTIA CAESS Campgate). Both types were issued in AD 324. Did the striker of this coin mix up his dies? Or was this an intentional effort at recycling an older reverse die?

To compound matters, the engraver (or engravers) of the dies ran out of room and shortened both inscriptions to make them irregular. The B is missing on the obverse: CONSTANTINVS IVN NO(B) C, and AVG on the reverse is abbreviated simply as A. This sort of thing isn't particularly uncommon, but it adds a layer of fluffed icing to an already erroneous cake.

 

Interesting and the chocolate patina looks yummy as Steve might say.

 

Whereas the last coin could be identified as a hybrid with a few misspellings, this one is completely awry...



Here is an obverse of Constantine I with another abbreviation at the end: AV. This obverse can be found on several issues, including the Vota/Wreath types and Campgates.

The reverse however, was a type used for the princes Crispus, Constantine II, and Licinius II. This inscription is completely botched. It should read CAESARVM NOSTRORVM, but instead we have CAEMSARVM NOSTRVM.

Not only that, but this reverse legend was NOT used at Ticinium. For this series, Ticinium used DOMINORVM NOSTRORVM CAESS, or its abbreviated version DOMINOR NOSTROR CAESS.

What the hell happened here? Did an apprentice engraver model the reverse after a coin from another mint? Even so, it should not have been paired with an obverse of Constantine I. Does this reverse (botched inscription not withstanding) suggest that there were regular issues for the princes with CAESARVM NOSTRORVM from Ticinium that are simply not recorded in RIC?

 

Interesting hypothesis. I would wager we will never know the answer.

 

Well I'm about to go hunting for them - I'll report back.

 

Well, there is a coin of Constantine II listed on Wildwinds as imitative...



Can this coin really be considered barbarous??

 

Barbarous? Really?? Maybe I'm just not attuned to the nuances of LRB portraits but I'd never have thought this was barbarous.

 

Same here

 

I could find nothing similar for Crispus or Licinius II. I agree with TIF and Bing that the so-called imitative coin does not look imitative. So my best guess is that my coin is a hybrid of an obverse of Constantine I and a reverse of Constantine II not recorded in RIC.

 

That's cool!

 

My final oddity for the day is this Licinius I, emperor-borne-by-eagle type. This just has to be barbarous, or I'll eat my hat...


For starters, RIC only records right, laureate, cuirassed busts for this type from Arles, as so...



Furthermore, a laureate, cuirassed bust left with spear over left shoulder isn't recorded in RIC VII at all. The obverse of my coin is a flipped image of G2, laureate, cuirassed, with spear over right shoulder. If I flip the obverse of my coin horizontally, it becomes legit...



But the style is too crude for an official issue, so I'm going with barbarous. Notice also that the mint mark is TARL, but the engraver ran out of room in exergue and stuck the L over to the right, next to the end of the reverse inscription, lol.

This concludes my trio of funky coins for the day. Sometimes you want "nice" coins, sometimes you want weird ones.

 

Once again, an interesting coin. I DO agree this one is barbarous.

 

JA, the Constantine II you cited is a gorgeous coin and one of the best examples of its type. I think it is "unofficial" and some people use "barbarous" (incorrectly, except the term is sanctioned by so much use) as a synonym for that. I don't think anyone really means it was made outside the limits of the empire by people who did not speak Latin, just that is was not an official mint product.

 

I am not a fan of that term either.

 

well, here's the honroius you made be buy JA. it's pretty rough, but a decent example of the type. i had LRB with the "3 emperors" reverse on the list.

3 emperors of arcadius or honorius

now off.





Honorius, AE4, 406-408 AD
O: DN HONORI-VS PF AVG
R:GLORI-A ROMA-NORVM; Honorius, Arcadius, and Thoedosus II ANT (A or Delta) in ex., Antioch mint, 15 mm, 1.7g, RIC X 153

 

These are all pretty rough. This is actually a very nice example of the type with a great brick-red desert patina typical of many Antioch coins. Nice find!

 

I have read that the red comes from the minerals found in the sand in Syria. Thus the name Syrian Red. For this period in Roman coin history, it's not a bad coin at all Chris.