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Author Topic: Extremely rare and beautiful early Vespasian sestertius - engraver's error  (Read 1412 times)

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Offline FlaviusDomitianus

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Hello everyone.

With so many sestertii of Domitian (which is my top priority) to deal with during this period, I couldn't resist adding to my collection also this beautiful Vespasian piece.

This coin belongs to the first issue of sestertii struck by Vespasian in 71 A.D.; all of them are very rare, showing a notable variety of bust types and many reverse types, some carried over from the Vitellius coinage, like this one.

The coin is better than the BM example (same obverse die) and shows an interesting engraver's error on reverse (TE instead of ET); this is the actual coin mentioned in RIC Note 28 page 65.

Kind regards

Alberto


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Offline Charles S

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Re: Extremely rare and beautiful early Vespasian sestertius - engraver's error
« Reply #1 on: November 30, 2015, 08:40:48 am »
Fantastic and very interesting coin.  Congrats
Charles Schotman

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Offline FlaviusDomitianus

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Re: Extremely rare and beautiful early Vespasian sestertius - engraver's error
« Reply #2 on: November 30, 2015, 08:44:50 am »
Thanks Charles, much appreciated.

I've been lucky to find it in a local auction.

Alberto

Offline okidoki

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Re: Extremely rare and beautiful early Vespasian sestertius - engraver's error
« Reply #3 on: November 30, 2015, 10:21:06 am »
very nice find, i would post Picture in this topic.
 ;D
All the Best,
Eric
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Offline FlaviusDomitianus

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Re: Extremely rare and beautiful early Vespasian sestertius - engraver's error
« Reply #4 on: November 30, 2015, 10:26:28 am »
Thanks Eric, picture posted.

Alberto

Offline quadrans

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Re: Extremely rare and beautiful early Vespasian sestertius - engraver's error
« Reply #5 on: November 30, 2015, 03:04:04 pm »
Thanks Eric, picture posted.

Alberto

 Hi Alberto,
 Again a very nice, rare and interesting coin ...

 Congratulation.. +++

 Regards
 Q.
All the Best :), Joe
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Offline curtislclay

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Re: Extremely rare and beautiful early Vespasian sestertius - engraver's error
« Reply #6 on: November 30, 2015, 03:46:18 pm »
HONOS ET VIRTVS is actually a type of Galba's wonderful "officina G" at the end of his reign.

Kraay, Aes Coinage of Galba, p. 52, was the first to notice that two of Galba's HONOS ET VIRTVS rev. dies, including your P 195 with the mistake TE for ET, then continued to be used for Vitellius. An example of your TE die used for Vitellius: Kraay pl. XXXV, A = Paris pl. XXIV, 90.

In the substantial body of material assembled by Kraay, however, there were no coins that showed a continued use of a Galban HONOS ET VIRTVS die under Vespasian, two years later. The discovery of such a coin has to be credited to the new RIC (Carradice and Buttrey), unless that die link was already observed in the Thesaurus catalogue of 2006.

Kraay's summary of his findings concerning this type:

"Honos et Virtus: Galba has four sestertius dies of this type (P 182, 184, 185, 195), of which two (P 185, 195: PLATE XXXV) were still being used by Vitellius' moneyers. Vespasian used this type in A.D. 71 only; altogether he had five dies of this type, none of which had been previously used by Galba or Vitellius."
Curtis Clay

Offline FlaviusDomitianus

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Re: Extremely rare and beautiful early Vespasian sestertius - engraver's error
« Reply #7 on: November 30, 2015, 04:09:45 pm »
Thanks Q for your kind comment.

----

Many thanks Curtis for your very informative post.

I didn't check before my copy of Giard's catalog of the Paris collection. Now I can see that Vitellius BNF 90 is indeed from the same reverse die as my coin!

Kind regards

Alberto

Offline curtislclay

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Re: Extremely rare and beautiful early Vespasian sestertius - engraver's error
« Reply #8 on: November 30, 2015, 04:38:11 pm »
In the substantial body of material assembled by Kraay, however, there were no coins that showed a continued use of a Galban HONOS ET VIRTVS die under Vespasian, two years later. The discovery of such a coin has to be credited to the new RIC (Carradice and Buttrey), unless that die link was already observed in the Thesaurus catalogue of 2006.

Actually, Carradice and Buttrey do not specify that the TE error die used for Alberto's sestertius of Vespasian was the same die that had earlier been used by Galba and Vitellius; all they say is, "Variety...TE for ET: Thesaurus (San Marino) 1 9/12/2006 457."

 I'm inclined to think that they weren't aware it was a Galban die, because otherwise they always point out in a footnote when Vespasian has been observed to have reused a die from an earlier reign.

It would be interesting to see whether that die link to Galba and Vitellius was pointed out in the Thesaurus catalogue. Unfortunately neither that catalogue, nor the Inasta catalogue in which your coin also appeared, are included in CoinArchives Pro.
Curtis Clay

Offline FlaviusDomitianus

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Re: Extremely rare and beautiful early Vespasian sestertius - engraver's error
« Reply #9 on: November 30, 2015, 05:13:15 pm »
Curtis, luckily I have the Thesaurus catalog while Inasta's is still online on their site.

Thesaurus noted the engraver's error but did not mention Galba or Vitellius previous issues.

Inasta has simply failed to mention the variant, which I noticed myself browsing the catalog.

Kind regards

Alberto

Offline curtislclay

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Re: Extremely rare and beautiful early Vespasian sestertius - engraver's error
« Reply #10 on: November 30, 2015, 05:33:03 pm »
Thanks for checking!

If I understand correctly, you yourself were aware that HONOS ET/TE VIRTVS was a Vitellian type, but not that the actual rev. die of your coin had earlier been used by both Galba and Vitellius.

So it seems that I may have been the first to point out this actual die link from Vespasian back to Vitellius and Galba!
Curtis Clay

Offline FlaviusDomitianus

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Re: Extremely rare and beautiful early Vespasian sestertius - engraver's error
« Reply #11 on: November 30, 2015, 05:44:14 pm »
Curtis, you are absolutely right.

I knew that this reverse (not the die though) was Vitellian, but I wasn't aware of Galba.

Thanks for pointing it out.

Alberto

Offline Nemonater

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Re: Extremely rare and beautiful early Vespasian sestertius - engraver's error
« Reply #12 on: November 30, 2015, 06:08:47 pm »
An absolutely wonderful coin Aberto, what an amazing find.  This is a real treasure!


Nemo

Offline FlaviusDomitianus

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Re: Extremely rare and beautiful early Vespasian sestertius - engraver's error
« Reply #13 on: November 30, 2015, 06:13:01 pm »
Thanks Nemo, actually the informations provided by Curtis have increased my pride in owning this beauty.

Alberto

 

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