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<p>[QUOTE=&quot;Shea19, post: 7880590, member: 90981&quot;]I&#039;m very happy to share my newest addition… can’t remember the last time I was this excited for a coin to arrive! This tetradrachm of Macrinus was struck in Edessa shortly after he rose to power by helping to orchestrate the assassination of Caracalla.&nbsp; Macrinus started to produce new coins in Edessa fairly quickly after taking over as emperor, likely before the mint workers had received his official portrait. As a result, some of the earliest tetradrachms from this mint have “transitional” portraits of Macrinus which somewhat resemble Caracalla.&nbsp; While I’ve come across several of those transitional portraits, I’ve never seen one quite like this.</p><p><br /></p><p>What makes this coin special is that the portrait on this Macrinus tet doesn’t just <i>resemble</i> Caracalla, in my opinion, it <i>is</i> a portrait of Caracalla.</p><p><br /></p><p>What I believe happened is that the portrait for this obverse die was completed while Caracalla was still in power.&nbsp; Before the obverse legend had been engraved, they received word of Caracalla&#039;s death at the mint.&nbsp; In a rush to get new coins made for the new emperor, rather than waste an almost-finished obverse die, the die engravers just kept the old portrait of Caracalla and then added in the obverse legend for Macrinus.&nbsp; The end result is a coin with a portrait of Caracalla and an obverse legend with the name of the man who had him murdered.</p><p><br /></p><p>[ATTACH=full]1358775[/ATTACH]</p><p><br /></p><p>Macrinus, Mesopotamia, Edessa, 217-218 AD., BI Tetradrachm (28 mm, 13.00 g).&nbsp; Laureate, draped and cuirassed bust of &quot;Macrinus&quot; to right, seen from behind. AY•K•M•ΟΠЄΛ•CЄΥ•ΜΑΚΡЄΙΝΟC CЄ/ <i>Rev.</i> ΔΗΜΑΡΧ ЄΞ ΥΠΑΤΟC Eagle with spread wings standing facing, head to right and holding wreath in beak; between the eagle&#039;s legs, shrine. Prieur 864(var)? Very rare.</p><p><br /></p><p>The right side of the obverse legend clearly reads &quot;CЄΥ ΜΑΚΡЄΙΝΟC&quot; which confirms that despite the portrait, the coin was in fact struck under Macrinus.</p><p><br /></p><p>Here is a close-up of the obverse in hand:</p><p>[ATTACH=full]1358784[/ATTACH]</p><p><br /></p><p>I don&#039;t think there should be much doubt that this portrait was originally intended to be for a coin of Caracalla.&nbsp; By comparison, the tetradrachm of Caracalla shown below was struck in Edessa towards the end of Caracalla&#039;s reign, and the similarity in portrait style to my coin is pretty easy to see. (This coin was coincidentally sold just 3 lots earlier at the same auction):</p><p>[ATTACH=full]1358773[/ATTACH]</p><p>Caracalla, Mesopotamia, Edessa, BI Tetradrachm, 215-217 AD, Prieur 845.</p><p>(Photo courtesy of Leu Numismatik)</p><p><br /></p><p>I&#039;ve always found these &quot;transitional&quot; portraits to be fascinating; they are a great little snapshot of some of the chaos that would come after a sudden transition of power... the mint workers did the best they could even though they didn&#039;t even know what the new guy looked like yet.&nbsp; There are certainly some great examples of Maximinus Thrax resembling Severus Alexander, and of Trajan resembling Nerva.&nbsp; The example below from the Prieur collection (not mine) is a more common &quot;hybrid&quot; portrait of Macrinus resembling Caracalla.</p><p>[ATTACH=full]1358814[/ATTACH]</p><p>(Photo courtesy of CNG)</p><p><br /></p><p>I find it especially interesting that the Edessa mint appears to have quite a few transitional portraits for Macrinus, indicating that many of his earliest coins may have been struck there.&nbsp; Caracalla was famously murdered when he stopped to relieve himself while on the road from Edessa to Carrhae, and Caracalla had been stationed in Edessa for several months before his assassination.&nbsp; My own speculation for why many coins appear to have been struck at Edessa so soon after the assassination is that much of Caracalla&#039;s army may have been stationed nearby, and Macrinus needed to make sure that he had enough money on hand to keep the soldiers paid and happy (I don&#039;t think the soldiers cared much whose face was on the coin).</p><p><br /></p><p>I got into a bit of a bidding war for this at the Leu auction (and paid almost double what I expected to <img src="styles/default/xenforo/clear.png" class="mceSmilieSprite mceSmilie2" alt=";)" unselectable="on" unselectable="on" /> ) but I&#039;m so happy I did....I don&#039;t know if I&#039;ll come across another coin quite like this one.</p><p><br /></p><p><b>Please share your early “transitional” portraits, any early portraits of emperors that look much different than their later portraits, your coins of Macrinus or Caracalla, coins from Edessa, or anything else relevant!</b>[/QUOTE]</p><p><br /></p>

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