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<p>[QUOTE=&quot;Claudius_Gothicus, post: 8339415, member: 116315&quot;]The Mensch &amp; Bauer collection that was auctioned by Leu over the space of several months featured a stunning selection of coins of Gallienus, which included plenty of coins that stood out due to rarity and attractiveness; as expected, most of them realized high prices, but luckily a few slipped through the net, and I am happy to have acquired one of these coins at what I consider to be a very fair price:</p><p><br /></p><p>[ATTACH=full]1478648[/ATTACH] </p><p>Roman Empire, Gallienus (253-268), Antoninianus, Rome mint. </p><p>Obverse: GALLIENVS AVG, radiate head right; </p><p>Reverse: CONSERVAT PIETAT, Emperor standing left, extending right hand and holding long sceptre in left hand, kneeling figure to the left, XII in exergue; </p><p>RIC V 171; MIR 648a; </p><p><br /></p><p>While this coin is by no means rare (Wolkow in his book lists 307 examples of this particular variant), this certainly does not seem to be represented in the coin market, as only around a dozen examples show up in the main auction archives, combined with a handful more from other websites - none have ever been posted on this forum, as far as I know. Moreover, most of them tend to suffer from a combination of poor strikes, small flans and lack of silvering, so, without sounding too prideful, I think mine might qualify as one of the best preserved ones.</p><p><br /></p><p>Unlike other emissions that I have written about in the past, though, this one does not feature many varieties: besides a few that concern the positioning of the officina mark, the only ones that are worth noting are a relatively common one with a cuirassed bust rather than the standard head, and a unique coin with the longer legend IMP GALLIENVS AVG which came from the Cunetio hoard:</p><p><br /></p><p>[ATTACH=full]1478653[/ATTACH] </p><p><i>(Image courtesy of cgbfr.com)</i></p><p><br /></p><p>However, I usually tend to focus on coins that stand out for their historical value and their uniqueness, rather than their beauty, and this antoninianus ticks those boxes as well, as it features an interesting mystery: who is the small kneeling figure that the emperor is tending a hand towards? As far as I know, no definitive answer has been given, though, considering that this coin belongs to Gallienus&#039; penultimate emission from Rome and was issued from the twelfth officina, which due to its lower output when compared to the other ones from this issue, appears to have been opened shortly before the mint switched to the emperor&#039;s final issue, the so-called &quot;Zoo Series&quot;, my guess would be that the figure is a personification of the Roman People, with Gallienus portraying himself as the preserver of piety, a message that he would concentrate upon even more in his following issue, which was focues exclusively on that, due to the presence of most of the traditional deities of the Roman religion.</p><p><br /></p><p>That&#039;s all for now; post your coins related to PIETAS, your coins of Gallienus from Rome, or anything else you feel like might be relevant <img src="styles/default/xenforo/clear.png" class="mceSmilieSprite mceSmilie1" alt=":)" unselectable="on" unselectable="on" />![/QUOTE]</p><p><br /></p>

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