Featured Two Coins from the East Harptree Hoard

meme18, You're right, but don't forget there were 1,496 coins in the hoard issued from many different emperors & 11 different mints. Civitasgalleries & Vcoins displayed some of the most common types especially from Julian II (718) & Constantius II (340).

 

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Don't most ancient coins come from hoards? Isn't it just a matter of the information being undocumented or lost? Please excuse my lack of knowledge.

 

You are correct. But there still is a certain thrill about owning a coin from a documented hoard and knowing exactly where your little treasure was hiding all these centuries. All the more so if it was part of a headline grabbing sensational discovery.

 

Wonderful siliquae! I also have Valentinian I and Valens in siliquae, but they are not from the Harptree hoard to my knowledge. The Valens that I have is highly iridescent, however, I am unsure if that's indicative of a particular hoard or cabinet toning. In any case, I'm hoping to get a Julian from the Harptree hoard!

 

My one East Harptree Hoard coin is also a Valens. It's definitely darker in hand than in the seller's photo below.

Valens, AR Siliqua, 364-367, Rome Mint. Obv. DN VALEN-S PF AVG, pearl-diademed, draped, cuirassed bust right / Rev. VOT- V- MV•LT- X in four lines within wreath. In exergue: Mintmark RB. RIC IX Rome 10c (p. 118), RSC V 91(h) (ill.), Sear RCV V 19687. 17 mm., 2.00 g. From 1887 East Harptree hoard.



I purchased it from Pegasi Numismatics back in January.

 

According to the 1888 Numismatic Chronicle article by John Evans, entitled "On a Hoard of Roman Coins found at East Harptree, near Bristol," there were 19 Valens siliquae of the type I purchased in the hoard, out of a total of 199 Valens coins and 1,496 coins overall. So it's not one of the more common types. And, if I'm reading correctly, the two Valens siliquae that @Al Kowsky purchased were two of only 8 coins of their type in the hoard.



See https://archive.org/details/thirdnumismatic08royauoft/page/44/mode/2up - https://archive.org/details/thirdnumismatic08royauoft/page/46/mode/2up .

 

I tried to see how many of your type were in the hoard, @lordmarcovan, but I'm a bit confused. See https://archive.org/details/thirdnumismatic08royauoft/page/42/mode/2up. There were 5 with your obverse and reverse inscriptions, with a bearded bust like yours and T. CONST in the exergue like yours, but without the eagle at the top of the wreath like yours. See Type No. 12 at the cited page. There were 52 with your obverse and reverse inscriptions, T. CONST in the exergue, and an eagle at the top of the wreath, but if I'm reading correctly, the bust in that type is beardless. See Type No. 13 at the cited page, referring back to Type No. 11 -- which is beardless -- for a description of the obverse. But I see none with your inscriptions, T. CONST. in the exergue, an eagle at the top of the wreath, and a bearded bust. So either the article's author made a mistake in describing Types 12 and/or 13, or the dealer made a mistake in describing your reverse wreath as including an eagle -- it doesn't really look much like one to me! -- or there's something I'm not seeing. Or you may need to ask the dealer about provenance.

Edited to add: I'm pretty sure it was a mistake by the article's author: Type 13 should have been described as having a bearded portrait, not beardless. See Sear RCV V 19126 (the same legends, mintmark and eagle at top of wreath as your coin, with an illustration showing Julian with a beard; Sear lists no such type with a beardless portrait). See also RIC VIII 309 at p. 228 (again matching your coin; there is a note preceding the entire section, at p. 227, saying that all of Julian's portraits of that period were bearded). Which means yours is, in fact, an example of Type 13, for which there were 52 examples in the hoard.

 

It would be ideal, and I would buy ancients again and pay more if I could get a provenance from found date. Maybe I will look around again.

 

Donna, Thanks for sharing the results of your investigation . I haven't had much time to spend on the CT website lately but decided to take a peek today . It's good to see the coins from this famous hoard generate a lot of interest, & the wonderful thing about most of these coins is they're not that expensive . I've been preparing a large consignment of coins for future CNG auctions, & the 1st coin I posted in this thread will be going to CNG in the very near future. In fact many coins & artifacts I've posted on this website will be going to CNG . I've decided to narrow my collecting focus to Diocletian era folles, Roman provincial tets, Barbarian coinage, & Byzantine coins . CT members who follow CNG auctions will recognize some of these coins.

 

@lordmarcovan , I don't know if you noticed my edit at the end of my post:

Edited to add: I'm pretty sure it was a mistake by the article's author: Type 13 should have been described as having a bearded portrait, not beardless. See Sear RCV V 19126 (the same legends, mintmark and eagle at top of wreath as your coin, with an illustration showing Julian with a beard; Sear lists no such type with a beardless portrait). See also RIC VIII 309 at p. 228 (again matching your coin; there is a note preceding the entire section, at p. 227, saying that all of Julian's portraits of that period, minted in Arles, were bearded). Which means, I believe, that yours is, in fact, an example of Type 13, for which there were 52 examples in the hoard.

 

L.M., Thanks, it was my lucky day . There was a nice variety of East Harptree Hoard coins in that auction, & I bid on all of them. I low-balled the two coins I won because they were the least attractive of all the hoard coins. The better examples did fetch much higher prices. My winning percentage at GC is less than 10% .

 

Several of my siliquae from this hoard are also so dark, one could be forgiven for thinking them bronze coins, were one not familiar with the types.