Featured Rare yet Boring - My New Hadrian As - FIDES PVBLICA (and a little Ptolemy Æ)

Another low-grade, poorly-described couple of ancients just came in from eBay (thank you US Postal Service!). Not everybody's cup of tea when it comes to collecting, but it keeps me out of the taverns (somewhat) and costs very little. Under COVID-19 quarantine , and a bit bored (the taverns are closed!), I am going to inflict this on you folks!

Something that surprises me about this kind of collecting is how I will occasionally get something that is "rare" that seems like it ought to be common. From what I've seen on CT over the past couple of years, ancient rarities are actually pretty common as a category, if that makes sense. Yesterday a low-grade Hadrian as and a cute little Ptolemaic bronze showed up in the mail ($9.95 for the pair, free shipping!).

The Ptolemy is indeed a common type (Svoronos 1426 /1427, Ptolemy V, VI/VIII or IX-XII, depending on who you ask). Here is a typical auction description for one of these (from acsearch):

PTOLEMAIC KINGS of EGYPT. Ptolemy IX to Ptolemy XII. 116-51 BC. Æ (20mm, 8.90 g, 12h). Alexandreia(?) mint. Series 9. Diademed head of Zeus-Ammon right / Two eagles with their wings closed standing left on thunderbolt; cornucopia to left.

Svoronos 1426 (Joint reign of Ptolemy VI and VIII); Weiser 143 (Ptolemy V); SNG Copenhagen 311-4 (Joint reign of Ptolemy VI and Ptolemy VIII); Noeske 216-20 (Joint reign of Ptolemy VI and Ptolemy VIII); cf. Lorber & Faucher Series 6E. ​

The Hadrian I figured would be just another "goddess standing around" type (as Doug refers to them). Which it is, of course. But I could only find one on OCRE, and no others anywhere else, including acsearch. So unless I'm missing something, I am concluding this is rare...RIC 809d (as).

The single OCRE example is from the Münzkabinett, Kunst Historisches Museum Wien - and theirs is not much better than mine is:

http://www.ikmk.at/object?id=ID61754

Rare, but boring. Hadrian issued several Fides types, mostly silver. The "PVBLICA" reverse is what makes this one rare in bronze - OCRE shows two other RIC 809 types - one a bare-headed as version and a dupondius, with no examples of either. However, a sestertius with this reverse (RIC 758) is fairly common. Here are the Æ FIDES PVBLICA types from OCRE:

http://numismatics.org/ocre/results...portrait_facet:"Hadrian"+AND+fulltext:PVBLICA

Rare, boring, and I'd bet not especially valuable, unless there are a couple of Hadrian "complete-ist" collectors out there getting into bidding wars over this sort of thing. But it is still fun to find one like this from time to time.

Show your unexpected rarities or new stuff or Hadrian or Ptolemy X?X or whatever strikes your fancy. I'd be thrilled if someone could share another RIC 809 of any sort.



Hadrian Æ As
(134-138 A.D.)
Rome Mint
HADRIANVS AVG COS I[II P P], laureate bust right / FID[ES PVBL]ICA S C, Fides standing right, holding two corn-ears downwards, in right hand and basket of fruit in left.
RIC 809d (as) (Rare?).
(12.37 grams / 26 x 24 mm)

 

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Cool, @Marsyas Mike ! The British Museum has only one example of that coin, BMC 1591:

 

Thanks for that, RC. I usually forget to check the British Museum collection - for some reason I have a hard time manipulating their search feature (my computer skills ain't the best). This is by far the best example of the three I've seen.

 

My attribution on the Hadrian needed some revising, because I found out something interesting that a lot of you probably already knew...did you know late in Hadrian’s reign, radiate crowns were removed from the "male" dupondius? (The ladies never had radiate crowns on dupondii).

As with so many things, I didn’t know that. But I just found this out reading the new RIC (Roman Imperial Coinage II.3: From AD 117 to AD 138 – Hadrian by Richard Abdy, Peter Mittag), page 20.
https://books.google.com/books?id=D...rce=gbs_ge_summary_r&cad=0#v=onepage&q&f=true

According to this source, the radiate crown removal happened c. 128 until the end of Hadrian’s reign in 138 A.D. Like the as, the dupondius of this era had a laureate bust. Only metal/weight differentiated them, just like the Imperial ladies. Antoninus Pius reinstated the radiate crown on his dupondii. Thank goodness!

Hadrian has been assigned new RIC numbers too, which are reflected in OCRE online. http://numismatics.org/ocre/id/ric.2_3(2).hdn.2269-2270

This being the case, I believe my original post needs correcting. First of all, the “d” after the old RIC number noted a dupondius, I think. So the old RIC 809d is correct, but not the “as” part, since I didn’t understand what I was doing. Rather, I believe it is a “laureate” dupondius, which I am going with because of the following:

1. It has incomplete patina, revealing brassy metal.

2. It weighs 12.37 grams, which seems to be more dupondius than as, given the wear.

Hadrian Æ "laureate bust" Dupondius
(134-138 A.D.)
Rome Mint
HADRIANVS AVG COS I[II P P], laureate bust right / FID[ES PVBL]ICA S C, Fides standing right, holding two corn-ears downwards, in right hand and basket of fruit in left.
RIC II, 3 2269
(old RIC 890d (dupondius))
(12.37 grams / 26 x 24 mm)

Of course I may be utterly confused about all this. If so, please straighten me out. If not, I would be interested to see other “laureate” dupondii of Hadrian, so please share.

 

Both of these were boo-boo's.

@red_spork actually caught both of these, instead of being one of the First Denarius Reform of 211 denarii, they were BOTH corrected as pretty hard-to-find SICILY issues!

I purchased this one to REPLACE my misattributed Denarius.

RR Anon 211-208 BCE AR den 20.9mm 3.7g Rome Hd Roma R X - Dioscuri riding spears, stars ROMA tablet Cr 44-5 Syd 167 RSC 1a RARE [EDIT: Crawford 53/2]


RR Anon AR denarius Roma 211-206 BCE ROMA incus Dioscuri single horn-helmet Sear-- Craw 68-1b SICILY ISSUE RARE (was cr 44-5)

I believe I got this one for $50USD, $60 Fully Loaded.