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<p>[QUOTE="DonnaML, post: 4352931, member: 110350"]I had been looking for some time for a Galba denarius to buy -- it's not always easy to find the right balance of price and appearance! -- and finally settled on this one, which arrived in the mail today.</p><p><br /></p><p>Galba AR Denarius, Aug-Oct 68 AD Rome Mint. Obv. Bare head right, IMP SER GALBA AVG / Rev. S P Q R/ O • B/ C S [OB CS = OB CIVES SERVATOS (<i>For Saving the Citizens</i>)] in three lines within oak wreath. RIC I 167, RSC II 287, Sear RCV I 2109 (ill.). 18.33 mm., 3.29 g.</p><p><br /></p><p>[ATTACH=full]1101486[/ATTACH] </p><p><br /></p><p>My question is about the dot in the middle of the word "OB" on the reverse, <i>i.e.</i>, the first word in the abbreviated phrase OB CIVES SERVATOS. I'm certainly familiar with dots sometimes being used on Roman coins to separate the words in a legend -- technically, they're called interpuncts when used as such. And sometimes they're used after abbreviations. Here, though, the dot is used neither between two words nor to signal an abbreviation, but appears in the middle of a word. Is this a practice with which anyone is familiar, and does anyone know if it had a particular purpose or meaning as opposed to being merely a decorative or artistic choice? Out of curiosity, I looked at quite a few examples of this coin type in the CNG Archives and at acsearch.info, and got the impression that more than half of them have a dot in the middle of the word "OB," placed in a variety of different positions. It's hard for me to imagine what significance this dot could have had, so my own purely speculative guess is that it was simply decorative.</p><p><br /></p><p>Thanks in advance for any opinions![/QUOTE]</p><p><br /></p>
[QUOTE="DonnaML, post: 4352931, member: 110350"]I had been looking for some time for a Galba denarius to buy -- it's not always easy to find the right balance of price and appearance! -- and finally settled on this one, which arrived in the mail today. Galba AR Denarius, Aug-Oct 68 AD Rome Mint. Obv. Bare head right, IMP SER GALBA AVG / Rev. S P Q R/ O • B/ C S [OB CS = OB CIVES SERVATOS ([I]For Saving the Citizens[/I])] in three lines within oak wreath. RIC I 167, RSC II 287, Sear RCV I 2109 (ill.). 18.33 mm., 3.29 g. [ATTACH=full]1101486[/ATTACH] My question is about the dot in the middle of the word "OB" on the reverse, [I]i.e.[/I], the first word in the abbreviated phrase OB CIVES SERVATOS. I'm certainly familiar with dots sometimes being used on Roman coins to separate the words in a legend -- technically, they're called interpuncts when used as such. And sometimes they're used after abbreviations. Here, though, the dot is used neither between two words nor to signal an abbreviation, but appears in the middle of a word. Is this a practice with which anyone is familiar, and does anyone know if it had a particular purpose or meaning as opposed to being merely a decorative or artistic choice? Out of curiosity, I looked at quite a few examples of this coin type in the CNG Archives and at acsearch.info, and got the impression that more than half of them have a dot in the middle of the word "OB," placed in a variety of different positions. It's hard for me to imagine what significance this dot could have had, so my own purely speculative guess is that it was simply decorative. Thanks in advance for any opinions![/QUOTE]
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