One of seven coins I picked up today. Online, there are lots of examples of RIC 6, with the IMP NERVA CAES AVG P M TR P COS II P P obverse legend and of RIC 18, with the IMP NERVA CAES AVG P M TR P COS III P P obverse legend. But mine's RIC 30, which reads IMP NERVA CAES AVG P M TR P II COS III P P. I can't find another one online -- not at Wildwinds, acsearchinfo, coinproject.com, coin archives (free version), Online Coins of the Roman Empire (OCRE), Sear 5th ed., or CNG archives. Is this thing rare? Post coins of Nerva, Justitia, or anything you feel is relevant. And any info about my coin in particular would be most welcome. Thanks! Nerva, AD 96-98 Roman AR denarius, 16 mm, 3.39 g Rome, Sept-Dec AD 97 Obv: IMP NERVA CAES AVG P M TR P II COS III P P, laureate head right Rev: IVSTITIA AVGVST: Justitia, draped, seated right on low backed chair, feet on stool, holding long straight scepter in right and branch extended in left Refs: RIC 30; Cohen 103.
Great coin even better rare as yours, all his silver can be pricey so one can only imagine what that one would be. I have a reasonably scarce Dupondius minted in the first few months of his reign Sept-Dec 96 AD.
Looked it up yesterday in BMCRE; it lists an aureus with this reverse type and obverse inscription, but no denarius. None on vcoins right now. This one is clearly more scarce than RIC's "Common" designation would indicate.
Update: I found another example online. This one (misattributed as RIC 18) from Pegasi Numismatics. I believe mine is a die match on both obverse and reverse. The Pegasi coin: My coin: The fact that the only two examples online are obverse and reverse die matches raises the question of whether the entire issue was struck from just a single pair of dies.
Anyone know how to search the Bibliotheque Nationale in Paris for the specimen that was referenced by Cohen? I want to see if it's a die-match, too.
Here is a link to all the Nerva denarii in the BNF. You may be able to narrow it down further if Cohen had an accession number for it or something, otherwise good luck!
Interesting! Congrats on the find Edited to add more examples of Nerva RIC 30: https://www.acsearch.info/search.html?id=3887461 https://www.acsearch.info/search.html?id=1049236 There were a handful in ACsearch that are incorrectly cited as being RIC 30 (they were RIC 18). I used search terms "Nerva denarius RIC 30", which gives a bunch of extraneous coins, but then skimmed the list looking for the correct reverse.
Cool! Thanks for tracking these down! I didn't use the right search terms or overlooked them somehow. These two are from different obverse and reverse dies from each other and from my coin, so at least three of each die. My coin turns out to not be so rare, but merely "scarce."
