Featured This is NOT a donkey head!

My dirty Decius

 

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There are some dealers that have been getting this right for years.

 

Correcting obvious errors in books is both difficult and thankless. We still have too many people who worship the printed word and distrust anything online. It is rather like saying that eBay coins are all fakes without acknowledging that the most trustworthy dealers sometimes sell on eBay. In this case, we have to admit that some dies and some coins look more dragon like than others. Some people pay extra for good die work while others would rather have MS65 from a sloppy donkey die. I really, really doubt that any die cutter ever considered people in the future not being able to tell one critter from another.

 

It arrived a bit over a week ago, but the encrustation has been very tenacious and unresponsive to easier and faster techniques so pin tools under 20X appears to be the only option. The crust seems like re-deposited crystallized metallic copper, never seen anything quite like it. I've gotten the face cleared plus some other areas and the underlying surfaces are fine, but it's slow-going and will probably be put off until Winter when there isn't anything better to do.

While that antoninianus purchase was coincidental, I just won this 30mm 18.09g sestertius because of this thread. It can use some cleaning-up too as the legends and details are gunked-up but the underlying patina looks strong so hopefully it will be more fun to work on. Y'all and your interesting threads are a bad influence!

 

That's a very nice sestertius! Much harder to come by than the antoninianus, too.

 

Three months later, i got one.

 

Love the detail on that reverse!!

 

Nice coin @catadc

 

A complete Draco on DACIA Coronarium issue of Antoninus Pius.
A bit late, but I just discovered this old thread.

 

Very cool! It nicely illustrates the complete draco.

 

Excellent presentation ‘’Roman Collector’’ , I just found your old thread.
Also very nice coins here, some are very rare, the Antoninus Pius sestertius and the Aurelian antoninianus.
I chose the best Decius\Dacian Draco I have, I hope you would like them. The dupondius is the rarest from this series.

 

Great reverse, @catadc !

Great coin, @Archeocultura ... neat Draco

And, @singig ... cool collection.

I never could see Ass-Head, even on worn stampings or dies like mine above.

 

I found some others representations of the dacian Draco in roman sculpture.
Parts of the text are from wikipedia.org

Trophy relief from the Hadrianeum , the Temple of Hadrian, dedicated to the deified emperor Hadrian on the Campus Martius in Rome, by his adoptive son and successor Antoninus Pius in 145 AD. Capitoline Museum.
This representation of Draco is more similar to what we see on Decius coins.



Trajan's Column, scene of two trophies with captured arms each having four Draco. The scene is located somewhere in the middle of column.

Plaster casts of the relief were taken in the 19th and 20th centuries. After a century of acid pollution, they are now more legible in some details than the original.


The Arch of Galerius (Thessaloniki, Greece), battle scene showing roman soldiers holding the adopted Draco standard. The arch was built in 298 to 299 AD and dedicated in 303 AD to celebrate the victory of the tetrarch Galerius over the Sassanid Persians at the Battle of Satala and capture of their capital Ctesiphon in 298.

 

I forgot to post two coins with Draco , the first one is a little fragile and I keep it in a more protected place, even if is broken it still preserve nice details.

It is also special for the fact that it is part of large hoard with an interesting story(its short version): This hoard of 4100 antoniniani was discovered in 1995 in eastern France - Saint-Jean-d’Ardières. This very large find it starts with the first series of antoniniani struck under the reign of Caracalla and ends in 252 AD under the joint reign of Trebonianus Gallus and Volusian. The coinages of Gordian III and Philip I form more than 80 % of the hoard. The coins were cleaned and studied by experts from National Library of France, they managed to publish a final study in 2013.... 20 years after the discovery the hoard was returned to owners(a constructor and the land owner ), they divided the hoard into two equal parts. In 2016 the land owner sold his part at auction. At that moment my coin was almost intact , but unfortunately during the shipping (possible) was broken ....and someone glued it pretty well , I'm the third or fourth owner.
And the second coin, which was recently purchased:

 

I will post few others coins , but they are with a roman standard ,
reverse DACIA FELIX or only DACIA

 

I haven't posted in a quite a while due to way too much work and too little time. This is one of my favorite threads and I finally got my own version of the dragon standard today (after 2.5 months travel time). The standard head on this one does look more dragon-like than donkey-ish to me.

 

That spec is from East Anglia.

And here is a rather rare early variation for Decius, from the autumn of 249, employing the short legend type that was regular under his predecessor Philip the Arab:

RIC IV C 2b
from Cerberus Ancient Coins

 

Note that RSC IV, Trajan Decius 16, still used the "head of an ass" description when it was published in 1971. Of course RSC uses Cohen's numbering system, but that's really no excuse!

 

Thank you.

So, minted in East Anglia? London? Or is there another mint there at this time?

 

No, no, minted in Rome, but that particular spec comes from del550 off ebay and was found in East Anglia.