Another eastern mint denarius added to the hoard. I have this allocated to the COS I series. I am pretty convinced that this is correct though I am not 100% sure. Septimius Severus denarius Obv:– IMP CAE L SEP SEV PERT AVG COS I, Laureate head right Rev:– FELICITAS TIMPO (sic), grain ear between crossed cornucopiae. Minted in Emesa. A.D. 194-195 Reference:- Cohen -. BMCRE -, RIC IV -, RSC -
Interesting. The lettering style on the reverse particularly so. Look at the "lower case" T in FELICITAS.
I suspect that is from a die break + wear, because the horizontal limb of the T is otherwise in line with the rest of the legend. Martin-- what say you?
You guys and your Emesa minted SS coins. Don't you have anything better to do than collect these ugly things? Oops! I just bought one myself. An SS from Emesa so just forget what I said. Nice coin Martin.
Lower case letters didn't start evolving until Charlemagne and Carolingian Miniscule, so I think TIF is right - probably a die chip at the top of the T. Very interesting type!
Frick, Martin => man, you post some pretty slick coins, eh? => well done, my coin-friend ... well done!!
In discussing this coin elsewhere with Curtis Clay he noted that this reverse type does occur with a variety of reverse legends but he had never seen an example with two ears of grain as shown on my example. The typical type comes with a single ear though he is aware of a COS II example with three ears which came from the Roger Bickford-Smith collection. I have not been able to find a match to the obverse die of my OP coin though it strikes me as familiar. The following coin is a typical example of the most common variant. COS II, FELICIT TEMPOR COS II, FELICIT TEMPOM is a footnoted variant COS II, FELICIT TEMPO Reference:- Cohen 142. BMCRE 347 note. RIC IV 372 (Rated S). RSC 142. On the face of it this coin is simply RIC IV 372 though RIC notes that Cohen likely has SEPT in error. RIC and BMCRE cite Cohen 142 for this variant (TEMPO instead of the usual TEMPOR). Cohen 142 reads FELICIT TEMPOR or TEMPO. It would appear that RIC and BMCRE could not find other examples of the TEMPO type other than Cohen when mentioning this variation COS I, FEILECITAS (sic) TEMPOR however is unpublished in any of the major catalogs, is not a listed reverse type for COS I and Curtis is unaware of any other FEILECITAS examples.
