TOO MUCH OF A GOOD THING? - RARE DOMITIAN SESTERTIUS PAX COS IIII

Although my collection is now limited to sestertii of Septimius Severus and family, at one time I collected sestertii of all kinds - life was simple. The criteria was that it had to be as close to VF as possible as well as affordable, my budget being somewhere between an Egyptian 20th Century Pharaoh and a bottom feeder - but (much) closer to the bottom feeder. Plus, since there was an objection to using household money for coins, I had to use cash from selling coins to buy coins - more of a challenge now than it used to be.

Accordingly, in order to buy coins that were affordable and fit my standards, I had to search and scour the listings very hard indeed. Only rarely were acceptable coins available anywhere but on ebay - those who have been buying from ebay for a number of years know that nice sestertii are now close to impossible to find on ebay. Plus for the new or unwary collector ebay is a minefield. All I can say is - it wasn't always this way.

The two coins I want to discuss today were both purchased on ebay - one in 2002 from a good friend who is now out of the business thanks to our government, the other in 2014 from an English seller who still deals in coins - but not on ebay.

The coins - Domitian sestertius, Pax Cos IIII - is unlisted in the first edition of RIC (it would have been Vespasian RIC 715). I do not have the new edition but it has to be listed. The first example - that I am aware of - to show up on the general coin market, as opposed to ebay, was in 2003 - CNG Sale 67, Lot 1382. CNG's coin had the same obverse die, and a different reverse die. CNG noted that, "the coin confirms the existence of an expected type for this series of Domitian." Very true - makes one wonder if there is a matching sestertius for all coins that are only listed an As or dupondius.

As a result of my own somewhat spotty research over the years, I am aware of seven examples of this type, from two reverse dies - the difference is that the olive branch breaks up PA X like so.

These are:

(1) My two coins - olive branch below PAX,
(2) CNG's example from 2003 - with the split PAX,
(3) Another example with the split PAX die sold by my friend on ebay on April 2, 2003,
(4) An example sold by Hercules, and others (same die as mine),
(5) A stunning example sold by NAC, ex-Helios sale 4 - split PAX die.

To (poorly) paraphrase Doug Smith in one of his articles, just because you have an unlisted ancient coin, it doesn't mean it is all there are - it is conceivable that others, even many others, are floating around. However, some conclusions on rarity can be made from the number of dies on existing coins. Here, there is only one obverse, and two reverse dies.

One other issue - why keep two of the same type? It is simply this - I like them both. It was only a matter of luck that I got the second one - the photograph was just ok, and there wasn't much bidding - this was the days when ebay was an auction site, instead of a place to dump thousands of overpriced coins in one price sales in the hope that a new collector would be foolish enough to buy one.

In any event, for once I was smart enough to wait to the end of the auction before bidding and got it for $180. Nothing like the old days of seven years ago.

Of course, trading it for a Septimius Severus or Elagabalus for a type I do not have.....

I would like to add more about Domitian but I am out of time - here is a description of the coins photographed:

First coin - 27.52 grams, 33.5mm
Second coin 25.81 grams, 32mm

 

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I can't see anything when I click on the links. Can you just upload photos the usual way?

 

how do you do that - I am trying to now

 

think I got it - but I wanted these to follow the article not precede it

 

Nice sestertii. Since you have one too many, I'll take the other off your hands.

 

Both coins are nice. Thanks for sharing.