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<p>[QUOTE=&quot;Roman Collector, post: 3202042, member: 75937&quot;]I don&#039;t have any new acquisitions to post so I thought I&#039;d quite literally choose a coin at random and write about what makes it special. I used a random number generator to pick one out of the 727 items I have cataloged in my collection and it picked this one.</p><p><br /></p><p>Post anything you feel is relevant!</p><p><br /></p><p>[ATTACH=full]829093[/ATTACH]</p><p>Claudius II, AD 268-270.</p><p>Roman silvered billon antoninianus, 3.66 g, 19.1 mm, 6 h.</p><p>Siscia, issue 1, end AD 268.</p><p>Obv: IMP CLAVDIVS CAES AVG, Bust right, radiate, cuirassed and draped with paludamentum, seen from rear.</p><p>Rev: RESTITVTOR ORBIS, emperor in military dress standing l., holding patera over small altar in r. hand and spear pointing down in l. hand.</p><p>Refs: RIC 189; MER/RIC temp no. 562; Cohen 247; Markl, <i>Num Zeitschr</i> v. 16, p. 427; Alfoldi 1936, 1.2.</p><p><br /></p><p><b>What makes it special?</b></p><p><br /></p><p>&quot;Yeah, yeah,&quot; you say, &quot;Claudius Gothicus coins are a dime a dozen.&quot; They are. I got this one back in 2016 for $8.83 per coin as part of a lot of twelve mid-late 3rd century bronzes from an Auctiones GmbH sale. HOWEVER, it&#039;s actually one of the scarcer issues by this emperor. No examples are to be found at acsearchinfo or the OCRE database. The only <a href="http://www.wildwinds.com/coins/ric/claudius_II/RIC_0189.txt" target="_blank" class="externalLink ProxyLink" data-proxy-href="http://www.wildwinds.com/coins/ric/claudius_II/RIC_0189.txt" rel="nofollow">example on WildWinds</a> was sold by Lanz on eBay in June 2010 for 101.78 Euros!</p><p><br /></p><p>It&#039;s one of Claudius II&#039;s first issues. <a href="http://www.ric.mom.fr/en/coin/562" target="_blank" class="externalLink ProxyLink" data-proxy-href="http://www.ric.mom.fr/en/coin/562" rel="nofollow">MER/RIC</a> and Markl (<i>Numismatische Zeitschrift</i> v. 16, p. 427) note it&#039;s from the first emission of the Siscia mint struck at the end of the year AD 268, which bear the obverse inscription IMP CLAVDIVS CAES AVG and bear no officina marks:</p><p><br /></p><p>[ATTACH=full]828931[/ATTACH]</p><p><br /></p><p>The Siscia mint portrait is quite well-rendered, if unexpressive. Although the span of this emperor&#039;s coinage was less than two years, the change in his portrait over time is dramatic. By the last year of his reign, the portraits have an almost cartoonish quality. This one, for example, resembles Jed Clampett, the character in The Beverly Hillbillies:</p><p><br /></p><p>[ATTACH=full]829094[/ATTACH]</p><p><br /></p><p>The randomly chosen coin has a fair amount of original silvering, and the flan is fairly large (especially compared to the issues from later in his reign). These qualities are not usually to be found on Claudius&#039;s later issues.</p><p><br /></p><p>Why RESTITVTOR ORBIS? The reverse inscription means &quot;Restorer of the world.&quot; After an admittedly less-than-exhaustive internet search, I find nothing to suggest this particular coin was issued in response to a particular military victory or other event (though I&#039;d love to know more about this). Rather, variations in the RESTITVTOR legend are common in the mid-third-century AD when there was much to restore. Indeed, the RESTITVTOR ORBIS legend is found also on the coins of Valerian I, Gallienus, Postumus, Aurelian, Tacitus, Probus, and Carus.[/QUOTE]</p><p><br /></p>

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