Hi all! This just appeared on eBay by a well known seller (of genuine coins). It appears to be an antoninianus of Carinus, but with a laureate bust, making the most likely denomination an as. The diameter is 25mm, and no weight is in the listing. However, the surface looks weird to say the least. It is quite smooth and scratched, with a strange outline behind the bust. The legend looks almost flat to the background, with there being a lighter metal between the letters. Also, the reverse "CLEMENTIA AVG" is unknown for Carinus. Does it look tooled? Thanks!
I agree there is something funky about it, perhaps - tooling/smoothing? Carinus did strike the as denomination, though. Here's one from wildwinds: He also struck a number of large medallions....
I don't have expertise with the technicalities (reverses, legends, denominations, etc), so I can't offer anything on that front. But, the neck and face look beyond smoothed to me (Compare them to the fields, which are also smoothed), which would at least fit the liberal definitions of "Tooled". I remember wrestling with these types of evaluations before deciding to only purchase slabbed ancients. It severely limited my purchasing options which sucks, but I definitely don't miss the anxiety over potentially getting ripped off.
I don't have an opinion regarding authenticity but a quick check at Wildwinds finds 21 entries with the obverse legend IMP CARINVS PF AVG.
Whoops. Thanks foe the correction. However, in the aggregate Gallienus and Aurelian are more likely to have that shortened legend. Considering the neckbeard I’m thinking a tooled Gallienus. What say you?
There is strange spacing between the VS and PF, and PF and AVG. there also appear to be some sort of abrasion in those odd spacing. My bet, with that being said, is still a tooled Gallienus - that’s a few letters more than CARINVS, and would explain the spaces and abrasions
