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<p>[QUOTE=&quot;lrbguy, post: 3633257, member: 88829&quot;]I&#039;ve been buying from Frank&#039;s auctions off an on for over 20 years; from back in the days before there was an eBay and everything was done by snail mail.&nbsp; He still sends me the auction flyers, though not for every auction anymore.&nbsp; Doesn&#039;t really need to, so when I get one I know it&#039;s a nudge.</p><p><br /></p><p>I&#039;m late to the announcement party, but I managed to get three lots from his last auction.&nbsp; I&#039;m going to show off two of them here and will start a separate thread for the third one - it&#039;s complicated.</p><p><br /></p><p>The first one is a denarius of Julia Maesa of the Severan Dynasty (or is it Severide?). Whatever.&nbsp; It features an attractive reverse of PIETAS holding out a patera in her right hand above a fire altar with flames. It&#039;s nicer than the example I already have and the price was right.&nbsp; I&#039;m very pleased to have gotten it.</p><p><br /></p><p>[ATTACH=full]974660[/ATTACH]</p><p><br /></p><p><br /></p><p>Just ahead of that one I also managed to pick up a reasonable denarius of Plautilla featuring a VENVS VICTRIX reverse with an interesting twist.</p><p><br /></p><p>[ATTACH=full]974661[/ATTACH]</p><p><br /></p><p>In my other examples of this reverse type the shield is bare, which is how I see it most of the time.&nbsp;&nbsp; However, Temeryazev and Makarenko in their slim two volume typological study of the silver coinage of the Roman Empresses, list and illustrate 10 variations of shield treatment.&nbsp; All but one of these have some kind of design work on the face of the shield.&nbsp; To my knowledge no two appear exactly the same, but they are of the opinion (speculative) that at least some of these additions had started out graphically on the aurei as an emblem of the Capitoline Wolf and Twins motif, but were rendered schematically on the silver.&nbsp; They hypothesize that over time it became increasingly abstract and &quot;simplified&quot; until it, and all other markings, ultimately disappeared altogether.&nbsp; Given the paucity of examples it is at best a highly speculative proposal, but at least it notices that something is going on, and in light of the use of the Capitoline emblem on all aurei known to them it does offer an initial premise.</p><p><br /></p><p>The example Frank sold me is not exactly like any that they list, but it is closest to their number 438 &quot;The inverted crescent is imaged on the shield; a dot and two strokes are under it.&quot;&nbsp; The angularity of the inverted &quot;crescent&quot; here conforms more to the figure of a left facing she wolf than what they illustrate, on both ends, but the stacked dots beneath don&#039;t particularly suggest the twins.&nbsp; This example also has a horizontal foundation line below the figure, which is characteristic of the first three of their images (#437-439).&nbsp; If anyone on Cointalk has another example of this treatment, we would love to get a pic of it.</p><p><br /></p><p>My third purchase from this sale was the coin I most wanted to get this time around, but has a rather complicated story.&nbsp; I will show it in a separate thread.[/QUOTE]</p><p><br /></p>

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