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<p>[QUOTE=&quot;Shea19, post: 8299219, member: 90981&quot;]I always enjoy these &quot;transitional&quot; coins.&nbsp; I have two early Trajans from this time period: a denarius and a dupondius.&nbsp; The portrait on my denarius has a strong resemblance to the later issues of Nerva.&nbsp; The portrait on the dupondius has some features of Nerva, but is definitely more Trajan-like.</p><p><br /></p><p>[ATTACH=full]1468082[/ATTACH]</p><p>Trajan, AR Denarius. Rome, 98-99 A.D., (17mm, 3.22g), RIC 30</p><p>Obv: IMP NERVA CAES TRAIAN AVG GERM P M., Laureate head right./ Rev: TR P COS II PP., Pax seated left on throne, holding branch and caduceus.</p><p><br /></p><p>[ATTACH=full]1468081[/ATTACH]</p><p>Trajan, 98-117 AE Dupondius circa 98-99, 27.50 mm., 15.66 g.</p><p>Radiate head r./ Rev. Abundantia, draped and diademed, seated l. on throne with two crossed cornucopiae as arms and holding long sceptre in r. hand; in exergue, SC.&nbsp; RIC 382.</p><p><br /></p><p>There are many different theories for how these came about, but I think it&#039;s pretty clear that unlike other transitional coins, this was not a situation where they simply didn&#039;t know what the new guy looked like yet.&nbsp; The portraits clearly have a lot of Trajan&#039;s features (i.e.- his awful haircut and more reasonable nose).</p><p><br /></p><p>I&#039;ve always subscribed to the theory, which I believe Doug(?) may have come up with, that many of these dies were originally intended to be coins of Nerva but were unfinished at the time of his death.&nbsp; Instead of throwing away their work when Nerva died, the dies were just modified to add more of Trajan&#039;s features.&nbsp; It certainly would explain why there are features of both emperors, though the resemblance is generally stronger in Trajan&#039;s early silver coins than his early bronze coins, which I can&#039;t explain.&nbsp; Fun topic to speculate about.[/QUOTE]</p><p><br /></p>

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