One of a Kind - A collection of some unique coins

I have admittedly had more than my fair share of luck at times when it comes to buying lots of coins, both on ebay and from auction houses. One unusual theme that has emerged is that I own a handful of unique, one-of-a-kind coins, from many different areas of ancient numismatics.

I'll start with my favorite, a trihemiobol of Kyme in Aeolis, the only one known of this denomination (this type is common as a much smaller hemiobol). It was sold by Roma in October of 2017, then inexplicably showed up in a Leu Numismatik job lot a few months ago.


https://www.sixbid.com/browse.html?auction=4200&category=112672&lot=3443313

Feel free to post your unique and/or unpublished coins!

 

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Another Greek from a different Leu lot, this one is an obol of Kelenderis in Cilicia, which has Goat/horse, goat/pegasus, and pegasus/athena die pairings, but not Athena/goat. It does not appear to be published in any work or auction catalog I can find.



The portrait of Athena is crude, but I feel that the goat would be obscured more if this was an attempted overstrike.

 

This one showed up in a CNG lot; described as a "local imitation" of an Indo-Greek drachm, probably of Apollodotus II. At just 0.98g, it doesn't seem to be intended to fool anyone

 

This one showed up as a gamble purchase on ebay; bought because I thought I saw some goodies in excessively blurry photos of "some of my late husband's old coins".

It is a Constantine the Great follis, muled with a PROVIDENTIAE CAESS reverse from Arles, third officina; a workshop not believed to have minted for Constantine.

(Note that Victor Clark expressed his opinion that this may be an exceptionally well done imitation, so it may be at the upper end of fourth century barbarous coinage; regardless it is not a type otherwise attested)

 

Already posted in another thread, here is a Hemitartemorion from Dardanos in Troas. This type is attested by a few (5-10?) examples of tetartemorion weight, 0.13-0.17g. At 0.06g, this one is pretty unambiguously a half denomination.

It showed up in a Kairos lot of mostly Kyzikos fractions.

 

As mentioned previously, I collect Indo-Sassanian coins intensively, and scour at least a dozen search queries on ebay every few days. I own a lot of very rare types, but this is the only one that appears to be totally unique, at least for now. Nothing in Maheshwari, Deyell, or Mitchiner comes even close.

It is a one-off and extremely late imitation of a Sri Ha drachm, degraded to nothing but the cheek, beard, and traces of the fire altar

 

Cilicia, uncertain. Obol, 0.54g. Unique?
Obv: Gorgoneion facing, no tongue, close-cropped hair; within 7 (or 8?)-sided aegis, two rows of scales, sides curved and neatly tied.
Rev: Three-quarters view of male head (bearded? satrap?), wearing headgear and headscarf.
ex-CNG, e-auction 146, August 2006, lot 442 (part of), from the David P. Herman Collection of Facing Heads on Greek Coins.

This coin seems to depict the head of a satrap in an unprecedented three-quarters view. The style of the gorgoneion within the aegis seems to match the gorgoneion on a unique satrapal bronze coin published by Imhoof-Blumer in Review Suisse Numismatik (1913), p. 93, #266; pl. 4 #2, with inscription Α Γ (which Imhoof-Blumer claimed abbreviated Agchialae in Cilician lettering). The depicted headgear also seems similar. I believe it is a product of the same mint and period as Imhoof-Blumer's coin.

The coin dealer David Herman imagined the reverse as “Female or Queen’s head”. An anonymous Classical Numismatic Group cataloger described the reverse as a veiled female head.

Assuming this example predates Alexander the Great’s conquest in 333 BC it’s an early depiction of an outspread aegis on a coin. The reverse is highly unusual -- usually satraps are depicted from the side on coins.

 

I know nothing about Indo-Sassanian coins but in Greek/Roman I would not expect an imitation to be in the standard references. I would expect half the imitations I have seen are rare enough that they could be thought to be unique especially if half the people studying the series ignore (do not record) unofficial looking coins.

In general I am unimpressed by claims of 'only x known' unless the claim is accompanied by a good explanation of where they looked. People tend to mistake 'not seen by me' with 'does not exist'. I have several coins that I have not seen duplicated in the literature but I know enough private collectors that most exist elsewhere as well as in my collection. The ones that do not may be unique but there is an excellent chance that there are a dozen other private collectors (not to mention museum basements) that it is not really safe for me to claim more than they are rare. I show a few here but would really appreciate you showing me yours. Burst my bubble! All are Eastern mint Septimius Severus and Julia Domna.
These exist with right heads and other reverses have left heads but I have not seen this reverse with a left head.


There are several Septimius Minerva coins but this pose has an owl,


This is a relatively common Emesa mint Severus reverse but I have not seen another with the X support under the chair. Is that too picky to count? I have owned this coin for over fifty years. Make me feel bad for missing the others.


Alexandria mint Venus coins are rare for Julia Domna. This is the only Septimius I have seen.


Julia Domna has a few, too. The Venus type is common from Emesa but this die spells out the reverse legend VICTRICI that is usually abbreviated VICTR.


Some people will claim any Domna with a reverse more appropriate for a male ruler is a 'hybred' error and not worth study. I do not consider them errors and buy what I find (unique or not). I admit the II COS on the reverse is a bit strange since women were never Consul but there are many other signs that the workers at the Eastern mints followed a different drummer.


Finally is a Pescennius Niger with a spelling error BONI EVINTV(S) on the reverse. Unlisted coins of this emperor are so common that I wonder if they outnumber the one that did make it into the references. How many of these are unique? Is this a category where being common is more rare than being rare?

Ancient coins were made from individually cut dies each with their own little quirks. Terms like rare and unique need to be applied with care. I hope none of you have a bucket full of any of my candidates for 'unique' status but that is just as possible as any one of them actually being the only one in existence.

 

This one was advertised as possibly unique:

Provincial Rome - Phrygia
Caracalla, r. 198-217 A.D.
Hieropolis, AE30, 30 mm x 12.36 grams
Obv.: AV K M AVP ANTΩNΕINO/C. Laureate, draped, and cuirassed bust right
Rev.: ΙΕ POΠ ΛEITΩN. Nemesis, wearing polos, standing facing, head right, holding rein or halter. To right Serapis, enthroned left with Cerberus at feet.
Ex Group CEM

My other Caracalla Provincials are (mostly) unpublished variants, but seeing as a definitive book on Caracalla’s Provincials has not been published (at least not to my knowledge) there’s no reason for me to think they are unique

 

Nice contributions, all!

@Ed, there are a few Cilician coins that depict the satrap as facing. This one is not currently attributable, but has a very similar portrait:


@dougsmit, Very nice collection! I do have a pretty wide collection of "Barbarous" Roman coins, which like you mentioned, nearly all can be described as "unique" but nobody cares because they are impossibly varied. I don't have any presentable photos of mine, but need to work on that. I am not sure about Indo-Greek coinage, but Indo-Sassanian coinage is actually quite unusual in that there are almost no one-off imitations; nearly everything can be categorized. I have seen some very interesting material coming out of India in the past few months; hopefully it will keep up!

 

How much does it weigh?

The weights of hemiobols (1/2 obol), obols, tritetartemorions (3/4 obol), trihemiobols (3/2 obol), diobols (2 obols) and so similar that I am far from convinced all those denominations exist.

Everyone agrees that the obol is 1/6 drachm. Usually drachms are large enough to have well-understood average weights. From this early period ("c. 480-450 BC") of the OP coin, SNG Danish does not have large denominations from Kyme and the few larger AR coins of Kyme are dated "c. 350-250 BC" (Might weights change in 100 years?) and center around about 1.9 grams, with wide variation. They must be hemidrachms. Take 1/3 of that and you get a theoretical obol of 0.63 grams, more or less (at Kyme, different at other locations depending upon their weight standards). So, if you have a coin of 0.30 grams you call it a hemiobol. So far so good. The coins in SNG Danish that look like the OP coin are 0.36, 0.45, and 0.50 grams. Here is mine:



8 mm. 0.49 grams.
Sear Greek 4174. "c. 450"

The six in SNG Turkey I are 0.34 to 0.49 grams. von Aulock's is 0.45 grams. Klein's is 0.47 grams and called a hemiobol there. Rosen has two at 0.47 and 0.41 grams. Weber has one called a hemiobol at 0.49 grams.

So, what are we to make of these weights. Are there two denominations that look almost identical? Hemiobols with wide variation? Trihemibols? Obols that are light? (After all there is some work involved in making them; they are not just bullion. Do we expect six obols to melt down to the weight of a drachm?)

"Obol" is a well-attested term in the literature. My gut feeling is that these are all simply light obols, not hemiobols. The idea that the Greeks distinguished nearly identical coins of 0.63 and 0.48 grams (3/4 of 0.63 grams) seems wrong to me. I do not support the idea of tritetartemorions existing.

I accept that hemiobols exist. If weights at some city show a cluster at, say, 0.70 grams and 0.35 grams, that is evidence of a denomination and its half. But if weights do not cluster, the evidence is diminished. We know that many ancient cities used the same type on different denominations. It is hard to tell the weight of a lion/boar fraction of Kyzicus by looking at it. You can find them at 0.80, 0.40, and 0.24 grams and other weights, suggesting three denominations. How did the man in the street know what he was spending?

If a tiny coin denomination "should" weigh 0.63 grams and a coin weighs 0.49 instead, must it be another denomination?

 

Is the term 'well attested' in the literature from this region or is this just a case of forcing Attic terms on Eastern coins? Going the other direction we see Sicilian silver called tetradrachms rather than 20 litra pieces. Do we know what each of these places called their coins?

 

Good question. I just skimmed through Melville-Jones's Testimonia Numaria of original ancient Greek writings about coins and saw the term "obol" scattered throughout. I didn't look hard enough to identify references from Asia Minor. But, Kyme was in Greek territory, a short sail from Athens across the sea, so the fact that scholars use the term "obol" for coins in that region is enough to convince me it is the correct term there too.

 

Neat coins.

Here is a FH on Constans from Rome.

 

Interesting entries
We're of course more likely to find exeedingly rare to unique coins in our fields of specialization.
I have a few coins of the Dombes principality that I believe to be unique (at least they're unpublished), and of course other examples might show up in the future. There are not so many publications (books, reviews and catalogs) about Dombes coins that you couldn't acertain with enough accuracy a coin to be unique so far.

Below is the most significant of them. I published it in a french numismatic review a few years back


Louis II de Montpensier (1560-1582), Pistole - 1579 Atelier de Trevoux
+ LVDO . P . DOMBARVM . D . MONTISP, Ecu de Bourbon couronné
+ DNS . ADIVTOR . ET . REDEM . MEVS . 1579, Croix feuillue
6.54 gr
Ref : Date inédite : Divo Dombes -, PA -, Mantellier -, Boudeau -, Sirand -, Friedberg -

Q

 

Welcome to the Ancients Forum, @Finn235 ! Those certainly are some unique and interesting coins. I think you'll find this forum to be unique and interesting also.

 

Although this reverse type is known for Septimius Severus, there isn't one of Julia Domna in Recueil général des monnaies grecques d'Asie mineure; it's not at Wildwinds, not at Coin Archives, not at acsearchinfo, not at CNG's archives, not in BMC, not in Sear Greek Imperial. It isn't in the ISEGRIM database either, which supposedly includes everything from Lindgren, Waddington, and the major SNGs for Nicaea. If it ISN'T unique, I'd love for someone to give me a citation or to show me another example:


Julia Domna, AD 193-217.
Roman provincial Æ (diassarion?), 3.78 g, 17.6 mm, 7 h.
Bithynia, Nicaea, AD 193-211.
Obv: ΙΟΥΛΙΑ CΕΒΑCΤΗ, bare-headed and draped bust right.
Right: ΝΙΚΑΙΕΩΝ, eagle (or phoenix) standing right.
Refs: SGI --; Recueil Général --; BMC --.

 

You are correct that it is nearly impossible to tell the fractional coins apart. I am opposed to the names numismatists use. A "trihemiobol" is 3/2 of an obol but it is also 1/4 of a drachm. A grammarian might call it a trihemiobol. I suspect a merchant would call it a quarter drachm or quarter stater.

To look for patterns it is helpful to construct a histogram of the weights. Here is one I made for the early coins of Abydos from auction records and museum collections:

Unfortunately there aren't enough samples to be sure of anything! The smallest bar, 0.1-0.2g, is called a "tetartemorion". I believe it is real, but maybe not called that name. Then there is a mess between 0.5g and 1.5g. It looks like a few peaks but the number of peaks changes depending on the number of histogram buckets selected. You might see one, two, or three denominations here.

There is a nice cluster from 4.9g-5.2g which is called "drachm" but might be a "stater". No clue if the one-offs from 1.8 to 4.8g represent the rare denominations they are called in the catalogs or if someone at the mint was having a bad day.

 

Here's another that is apparently unpublished and which appears nowhere else online:


Severus Alexander and Julia Mamaea.
Roman provincial AE Pentassarion, 10.1 g, 25.7 mm.
Moesia Inferior, Marcianopolis, AD 225-229.
Obv: ΑVΓ ΚΜ Α[VΡ CΕVΗ ΑΛΕΞΑΝΔΡΟC ΚΑΙ] ΙΟVΛΙΑ ΜΑΜΑΙΑ, confronted busts.
Rev: ΗΓ ȢM [ΤΕΡΕΒΕΝΤΙΝΟV ΜΑΡ]ΚΙΑΝΟΠΟΛΙΤ-ΩΝ, Dikaiosyne standing l., holding scales and cornucopiae, E (5) in field, r.
Refs: Not listed in: AMNG, Moushmov, Varbanov, BMC Greek, Sear Greek Imp, SNG Cop, SNG von Aulock, or Hirstova and Jelov.

 

All the coins pictured are fantastic, thank you guys for showing me some of your coins. I am still working on cleaning my lots up but someday I will be able to post some . I really enjoy looking and learning from the best. Keep up the great photos for us wanna be ancient collectors. thanks Dillan