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<p>[QUOTE=&quot;dougsmit, post: 2629106, member: 19463&quot;]Part of me wanted to question AJ&#039;s use of the term &#039;Astronomical&#039; since I might have preferred &quot;Gargantuan&#039; or &#039;Brogdingnagian&#039; but I recalled this old Gary Larsen (Far Side) cartoon that demonstrates that even &#039;Astronomical&#039; can cover quite a range of numbers.</p><p><img src="https://s-media-cache-ak0.pinimg.com/564x/3d/f0/8d/3df08d8cf69f1e53ee53bbc12df21c4b.jpg" class="bbCodeImage wysiwygImage" alt="" unselectable="on" /> </p><p>He makes a great point about just what makes a coin enough different that it qualifies.&nbsp; I will immediately discount a distinction like his second &quot;only example with this caliber of artistic execution&quot; since we are dealing with coins struck from individually cut dies and this is a value judgement of style (one with which I tend to agree - this is a great die set).&nbsp; Being the only example from a magistrate strikes me as more deserving as would a coin with a unique date or mint mark even though the type is common with other dates or mintmarks.&nbsp; That brings us to a coin of mine that may be unique under this definition.</p><p>[ATTACH=full]578183[/ATTACH] </p><p>There are thousands of denarii of Septimius Severus from the Emesa mint with trophy of arms reverse but this is the only one known to me in the style and obverse legend of the Alexandria mint.&nbsp; The coin would attract a bit more interest if it were not as ugly as sin but lets be clear on the point that a unique coin is not guaranteed being mint state.&nbsp; In fact, I suspect the far greater number of unique coins will be more like my coin than AJ&#039;s when it comes to grade.&nbsp; </p><p><br /></p><p>That brings us to the question of how many coins exist that have a type unique to that specimen.&nbsp; I&#039;m not talking about a die mismatch or a recut date or some other minor detail specific to one die out of a thousand that made similar coins.&nbsp; I love die studies but reject the idea that one die is more interesting just because it is different.&nbsp; I have several coins that are the only one I have seen and that are not represented in the literature.&nbsp; Martin and I regularly show &#039;new&#039; to us Eastern Septimius varieties and half the time find out that the other one also had it.&nbsp; We are not the only two people who collect these things so a coin can jump from &#039;possibly unique&#039; to &#039;several known&#039; in a matter of minutes.&nbsp; </p><p><br /></p><p>Completely different type, not an error, researched (not just searched on acsearch or not seen anywhere in my 50 years of looking!) with known experts and clearly legible (not hard to be sure what it reads) ---- how many coins do I have that I can prove are &#039;unique&#039;?&nbsp; Good question.&nbsp; Probably none.&nbsp; Whenever I think I might have one, another example seems to turn up in only a decade or two.&nbsp; It can not be proven what does not exist.[/QUOTE]</p><p><br /></p>

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