I still have a few December additions that have not yet arrived, so my 2019 top ten will be a true year in review. I can now post the items I most enjoyed getting this past year, but I will do it in two thematic groups. The group of coins in this post are my top favorite acquisitions for my Women of Rome collection in silver. Saying that is a bit ironic inasmuch as one here is a Greek coin and one is a Roman Provincial bronze. What can I say, they had to fit in somewhere. Since each coin has its own intrigue I can’t say I favor one much over another, so the coins for the Roman Imperial women will be arranged chronologically by when they were on the throne. First, however let me dispense with the Greek addition. ATTICA, Athens c. 454-404 BCE Back in May when TIF posted her recently acquired Attic Tetradrachm, she made the point that a large number of these are presently on the market so that prices for nice examples would be down for a while. I had been procrastinating about upgrading my example for years, but decided that now would be a good time to do something about it. Since I had no intention of shooting for top of the line, her example looked about right. Since many have been encased by NGC, I decided to shoot for something akin to the 5/5 strike, and 3/5 surfaces benchmarks she had found. This one came along and I decided to go for it. It’s still entombed in plastic (see the white marks?) because I don’t trust myself to break the case without scratching the coin. I have looked at some of the radical solutions proposed here, and so far it’s “no thanks.” I wanted an example that showed the full crest, but was a bit stumped by the blank spot on the flan above the helmet. That got settled when a splendid full crest example popped up here and I was able to see clearly that my blank spot is a slight mistrike in which the feathering is not fully struck. Too bad. But it is still a nice strike, and I’m satisfied. All said, it was not my most expensive coin for this year. Top Ten Women of Rome Acquisitions for 2019 Manlia Scantilla First up is a denarius for the wife of Didius Julianus. I had acquired a coin for her daughter Didia Clara last year, and found a budget example for mama this year in a sale by CNG. It looked pretty grungy and still cost over a grand, but usually the coins at CNG have good integrity, so I decided to take the plunge. I thought that if it was sound I might be able to clean it up a bit. After a couple of hours with the microscope and needle it seems well on the road to recovery (see below). If you are going to take a steel needle to a costly coin, you have to make sure you are not going to alter the surfaces. Unfortunately for me some previous owner did some very spotty smoothing (and roughing) in places, probably to fix up some cleaning problems. I did not attempt to alter those spots, but made sure I did not add to them. My work was confined to the black accretions of hardened soil deposits, and they have been responding quite well. Despite the earlier mangle I am very pleased that the coin has retained so much of its original integrity. The portrait is liberating very nicely, I think. It has a ways to go, but I don’t foresee any real problems. Julia Maesa The next coin is an early example of the use of the ascending peacock apotheosis on a CONSECRATIO denarius of Julia Maesa. Her denarii are generally quite common, but this consecration issue is a bit on the rare side. It seems to be the earliest use of this ascending bird reverse type I have seen. Prior to this the peacock (or also an eagle) is standing in various poses, including the one on the very rare antoninianus of Maesa’s sister, Julia Domna. I was happy to add it, although it came in a tomb (how appropriate), and is still in it until I can be sure I can release it without damage (hence the white spots in the photos). Egnatia Mariniana (For the sake of the reverse type I will present this next coin out of chronological sequence) The wife of Valerian I, and presumably mother of Gallienus (contra Temeryazev and Makarenko), died in 253 just as her husband was coming to the throne. All of her coinage is posthumous in two principal CONSECRATIO types, with peacock standing or ascending. Among the latter she is most commonly seen mounted facing to the left and the bird ascends facing to the right (see the Maesa example above). However, a listed variant of this type has the two figures reversed from those positions. It was very satisfying to be able to add an example of this variant to the collection in 2019. Herrenia Etruscilla The antoniniani from the mint at Rome for the wife of Trajan Decius are quite plentiful, particularly those with the Pudicitia reverse type. Her coins from the eastern mint (most probably Antioch) are another matter entirely. These feature reverse types not regularly used at Rome at this time. Today the eastern coinage is seldom seen, so I was delighted to find this example from a reputable seller on eBay. One of the key “tells” for the eastern mint issues is the presence of dots below the obverse bust, as you see here. Cornelia Supera This empress is only known to history through her coinage which seems to connect her to the emperor Aemilian. All of her imperial coinage is in silver (except for a highly dubious sestertius with an Otacilia Severa reverse) and is of such rarity as to be hopelessly out of reach for me. Thanks to the kindness of list member @Finn235 he alerted me to a reasonable Roman Provincial which I was only too happy to add to the pile. It’s not much of a looker, and even this was not cheap, but it is certainly better than what I had for her before (which was nothing). Pause to reload:
(continue) Fausta (I) The coins of Fausta are mostly not particularly rare, but assembling a complete set from all the mints in all the main types is a bit of a challenge. Among the earliest are the star and wreath reverses from Thessalonika, which were issued in 318-319 ahead of the more common SPES reverses a few years later. This issue comes with and without the letters of the mintmark appearing on the reverse. The coins with the completely anepigraphic reverse (RIC 51) are slightly more common than those with the exergual mark TSA below the wreath-tie (RIC 49). I managed to acquire a reasonable example of the one in 2018, and a similar example with mint mark in 2019. Since I have never shown either before, they are here. Fausta (II) Among the REPVBLICAE issues for Fausta and Helena, the most elusive are those from the mint at London. I missed out on an item CNG offered a short while back. I was set to bid a number well above the price at which it sold, but I was prevented by another commitment from entering the sale in time. It was a beauty. Fortunately, they soon offered another example in lesser grade. On the principle that anything is better than nothing I went for it, and snagged it for a fraction of what the first one would have cost. Make no mistake, I would rather have gotten the first one, but this gets me over the hump. So, after more than a decade of assembling my set of her issues by mint, for all 14 mints, the Fausta from London was finally able to be added. First officina. That puts her ahead of Helena, for whom I have three times as many coins but none from London. Theodora Theodora was effectively a step-daughter to Maximian, and became the second wife of Constantius I, in order to tighten up the familial connections in the First Imperial Tetrarchy. She was not the mother of Constantine, and this had dire consequences for her progeny after Constantine died. In an effort to remove alternative familial claimants to the imperial throne, the sons of Constantine arranged to have all the eligible claimants to an imperial title from Theodora’s line executed. But not before they honored her and the first wife of Constantius I, Helena their grandmother, in an issue of coinage which for Helena was certainly commemorative, and for Theodora most probably so. These coins are quite diminutive and fine strikes are the exception rather than the rule. There are several varieties of the coins of Theodora from two mints, and I have been trying to get well struck examples of each. This coin is RIC VIII 43 from Trier, distinguished by the use of a square cross in the left field on the reverse. It is one of very few from that mint I have seen which is well struck. Galla Placidia The mother of Valentinian III, she served as regent of the western provinces for the first 12 years of his reign, in the early to middle 5th century, and finished her career in civic improvement in Ravenna. She stood in high regard with Christians of the 5th century. Imperial bronze coinage for the very late Roman empire is generally not well preserved and can be hard to come by. This coin is rather typical in that regard. It is not yet in my hands, so I am a bit apprehensive about mentioning it, but it was one of my 2019 purchases I am well pleased to have made. (seller photo) I will create a separate thread for my top ten list of 2019 acquisitions for coins not listed in RIC.
I love them all, but my favorites are the Antioch mint Etruscilla and the posthumous Maesa. Very scarce.
I used to be quite interested in the Roman antoninianii minted in the east minted during the reigns of Gordian III ,Philip I and II, Decius, and ending with Gallus and Volusian. This is one of those I decided to keep. Herennia Etruscilla Ar Antoninianus 249-251 A.D. Antioch Rv Pudicitia seated left. RIC 65 var 4.52 grms 23mm
A few years ago, I was at a Baltimore show and saw two of these London mint coins in the stock of the same dealer. The two had equal surfaces and were unevenly struck to about the same degree. One was sharp on the hair and mintmark but had no detail on the top third of the reverse or on the bust below the neck. It was four times the price of this one with poor hair and very weak mintmark but a good strike on the babies. I bought the cheap one. Few would have made that decision due to the mintmark although the ID is certain. The same coin with the strong points of both the ones I saw would have been ten times the price (assuming such a coin exists). Your coin is a balanced strike. From what I see online, that seems unusual for these.
