I received this in the mail the other day (from a vendor on MA Shops) and was surprised to find out it weighs 4.43g (20mm) which seems really heavy. I am slowly collecting denarii of Severus Alexander and it is by far the heaviest one I have - the next heaviest one is about 3.7g. Sellers pic below. This is RIC 125 RSC III 453 - the last year of his reign 235AD. I thought this might be on the heavy side based on the thickness of the flan you can see from the picture (no weight or diameter was given by the seller). I also thought the flan edge looked somewhat squared off on the bottom which is unusual but while having some wear, the coin is not excessively worn and therefore might not have fully rounded edges. I looked through coinforgery and Forvm fake reports without finding any matches, and didn't see any die matches on acsearch. Looking at it under 30x magnification most of the raised areas meet the fields in fairly sharp angles and there are some remnants of flow lines. I didn't see any casting bubbles and the fields are not uniformly smooth so it doesn't look like either a "normal" or pressure cast to me. I don't see any sign of a casting seam and some of the cracks in the edges do have dirt and even some green encrustations. However, I am not good at spotting fakes which is why I never buy anything off Ebay unless its a vendor that also runs auctions on Sixbid or has a Vcoins store. Comments are welcome on whether this could be a cast or whether we actually get denarii this far outside the normal weight range. As an aside I find the fake reports on Forvm frustrating to use sometimes because the posters rarely give any detailed reasons as to why they are fake. I do appreciate the time people take to post fakes but to me, one-liners like "obvious cast" or "produced in Bulgaria" don't convey much useful information. Some of the fakes are obvious but others (and by that I mean many others) would have fooled me. Forvm has some great examples of the various types of fakes but I think it would be a more useful site if the regular fake reports required at least a brief explanation. Thanks for your help!
Looks fine to me, sometimes some coins are just fairly heavy for the type, it happens. Usually isn't a premium for them. I find them interesting and sometimes snatch a coin up if it's fairly heavy for the time & affordable. Also, yours is a bit special since it was minted in the last few months of his reign, which tend to be pretty scarce for him. I have the same coin but much lighter of course. Severus Alexander (222 - 235 A.D.) AR Denarius O: IMP ALEXANDER PIVS AVG, Laureate, draped and cuirassed bust right. R: PM TR P XIIII COS III PP, Sol walking left holding whip and raising hand. Rome Mint, January–February/March, 235 A.D. 2.8g 19mm RIC125 Minted in the last few months of his reign!
That is awfully heavy. Wild stab in the dark: could it be two flans struck together? That would explain the thickness, and the weight is consistent with this. Is there any evidence on the edge that might suggest two flans? Here's a recent post on a Gallienus I have which is double weight for this reason. But it seems to be an awfully rare occurrence, so it would be a real fluke if that's what's going on with your coin, just after I posted about mine. (Or maybe it's more common than we realize?) In any case, I'm happy you are collecting Severus Alexander denarii. (Please leave the middle bronzes for me, though, K? )
I saw a Falling horseman FTR AE2 recently for sale that was 10.608g vs. normal < 5.20g on an unusually thick flan. These things are unusual but are out there.
Maybe the mint worker picked up a flan from the double denarius bin when minting a denarius by mistake.
Terrific example! I love the look and the atypical weight!! If it's not genuine it has me completely fooled
Oh, and it doesn't make sense that counterfeiters would make a coin with atypical weight. I'd think they'd try to replicate the average weight of the issue as best as possible. To me it almost seems like the atypical weight is more evidence of the genuineness of the coin.
Thanks for the replies everyone - I thought the coin was OK but this puts my mind at ease - I don't see any indication this is two flans stuck together (although that would be really cool). Severus Alexander - great avatar - I promise to stick with silver for now and avoid bronze (of Severus Alexander!) . I made a list of about 150 denarii of Severus Alexander from RSC III (which does not include all of the type variations) to track down and I am about a third of the way there. Now comes the hard part - many of the remaining coins rarely come up for sale. That's OK because I am so easily distracted by other coins I can wait for them to show up.
This would seem a good answer save the fact that Severus Alexander issued no antoniniani and the Elagabalus coins were early in the reign. Could there have been a few blanks in the bottom of a bucket? Certainly. My lightest Elagabalus ant is 4.6g but I imagine there are some lighter. I do not have a better answer.
I'm happy for everyone to buy sestertii. I have the semi-serious goal to get a type set of dupondii and/or asses, though... as of about a month ago! Congrats on managing a third! You may find this free sample of the forthcoming update to ERIC II useful: The complete coinage of Severus Alexander. I forgot that Suarez had included weight ranges in this... your denarius falls comfortably within the range that he gives, 1.09g(!) to 5.16g.
The world renowned numismatics hand model @John Anthony. I recognize those glorious digits a mile away. I wonder if he has an insurance policy on his fingers? I've heard of hand models doing that.
