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<p>[QUOTE=&quot;Roman Collector, post: 3158617, member: 75937&quot;]This item has piqued my interest. I&#039;ve never seen this coin ever and I can&#039;t find another example online. It&#039;s not in the British Museum collection nor in RIC. It shows no sign of being a fouree and stylistically, it is completely consistent with coins of Hadrian and Sabina.</p><p><br /></p><p>[ATTACH=full]810251[/ATTACH]</p><p><br /></p><p>This obverse is described for a single denarius type of Sabina, RSC 35a, which is extremely rare, and is a hybrid using the reverse of Hadrian&#039;s denarius RIC 355. (Other left-facing busts of Sabina with her hair in a plait are known, of course, but they have the obverse legend SABINA AVGVSTA HADRIANI AVG P P.) An example (the only example?) is pictured in Temeryazev &amp; Makarenko:</p><p><br /></p><p>[ATTACH=full]810252[/ATTACH]</p><p><br /></p><p>The plate coin appears to be this one:</p><p><br /></p><p>[ATTACH=full]810253[/ATTACH]</p><p><br /></p><p>This exact same specimen has been sold many times at high-end auction houses: <a href="https://www.acsearch.info/search.html?id=157655" target="_blank" class="externalLink ProxyLink" data-proxy-href="https://www.acsearch.info/search.html?id=157655" rel="nofollow">CNG in 2004</a>, <a href="https://www.acsearch.info/search.html?id=352494" target="_blank" class="externalLink ProxyLink" data-proxy-href="https://www.acsearch.info/search.html?id=352494" rel="nofollow">The New York Sale in 2007</a>, <a href="https://www.acsearch.info/search.html?id=724866" target="_blank" class="externalLink ProxyLink" data-proxy-href="https://www.acsearch.info/search.html?id=724866" rel="nofollow">Gemini in 2010</a>, and <a href="https://www.acsearch.info/search.html?id=4456291" target="_blank" class="externalLink ProxyLink" data-proxy-href="https://www.acsearch.info/search.html?id=4456291" rel="nofollow">NAC less than a year ago</a>.</p><p><br /></p><p>The coin in question has a flan flaw in front of Sabina&#039;s nose, but I believe it&#039;s a die-match to the COS III with crescent and star hybrid, above:</p><p><br /></p><p>[ATTACH=full]810256[/ATTACH]</p><p><br /></p><p>So, that&#039;s interesting in and of itself. The coin in question appears to be a hybrid, too, but to which coin of Hadrian? It depicts Minerva standing left, holding spear and thunderbolt; shield behind to right. The denarii of Hadrian with COS III on the reverse but without additional legend are listed in RIC as nos. 330-358 and none of them depict a goddess with a thunderbolt and spear with a shield at her feet. The closest is RIC 330:</p><p><br /></p><p>[ATTACH=full]810257[/ATTACH]</p><p>Specimen courtesy of Numismatik Naumann, <a href="https://www.acsearch.info/search.html?id=1704241" target="_blank" class="externalLink ProxyLink" data-proxy-href="https://www.acsearch.info/search.html?id=1704241" rel="nofollow">Auction 8, lot 329</a>, Oct 6, 2013.</p><p><br /></p><p>But this reverse type is clearly different from that in the coin in question (which I post again here to save you from having to scroll up):</p><p><br /></p><p>[ATTACH=full]810251[/ATTACH]</p><p><br /></p><p>What are your opinions on this thing? Is it a genuine ancient Roman coin? A very well crafted ancient forgery? A modern forgery?[/QUOTE]</p><p><br /></p>

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