Very interesting coin.
This
type is a fascinating
type which is not fully understood.
There are
Constantinopolis /
Gloria 2
standard pairings but they appear to be very
rare and I only know of ones from
Cyzicus.
On the other hand the
Constantinopolis /
Gloria 1
standard pairings are fairly common from
Heraclea (like your example) and
Constantinople, rarer from
Nicomedia, and quite
rare from
Thessalonika and
Cyzicus.
Unfortunately there are few
good clues in terms of dating. Most of these mints used the same
mint mark throughout the
reduced size period making it hard to narrow it down. The
rare Cyzicus coins do give one important clue in that they are found with two
mint marks - SMKA (widely thought to be the first post-reduction mark as it was the pre-reduction mark) and SMKA
(usually thought to be the second post-reduction mark). There are a few other
Cyzicus mint marks in this period that it has not been found with.
Interestingly almost the same pattern exists with the
Urbs Roma /
Gloria pairings.
What can we conclude from this?
They are too common at at least two mints for them to be typical
mules. They must have been intentional issues at at least
Heraclea and
Constantinople.
Given that they exist at all the Pontic
area mints, and in both
Constantinopolis and
Urbs Roma types, we have to consider it possible that even those from
Cyzicus,
Nicomedia and
Thessalonika were also official issues, though struck in much smaller numbers than those from
Heraclea and
Constantinople. These five mints might have been under the jurisdiction of a single supervisor.
The fact that they occur in two
mint marks at
Cyzicus might mean that they were struck for a relatively longer period - though in low numbers - and not just for a brief time such as just after the reduction.
The very
rare example with
Gloria two
standard reverse which is found at
Cyzicus for both
Constantinopolis and
Urbs Roma could be either a sign of some sort of sloppiness or administrative chaos at the
mint OR it could be a sign that this
type began to be struck at
Cyzicus just prior to the size reduction and then spread to the other Pontic mints. This is by far the most speculative of these conclusions
As to Ken's example I agree with Doug that it seems to indicate it dates from very near the reduction phase though the exact diameters of all pearl
rings would be very useful.
Shawn