I recently acquired a
Victoriatus that
had been listed as a
crawford 53/1 however in reviewing Friedman and Schaefer's well done Diagnostic Guide to Anonymous Victoriati I not so sure 53/1 is correct for this coin.
It appears to me closer to 166/1.,but as this is the first
Victoriatus to find a
home in my
collection I'm not entirely confident is my diagnosis.
53/1 as described in the guide (
http://stevebrinkman.ancients.info/anonymous/AnonymousVictoriatii.html#quickfinder)
"Both
obverse and
reverse exhibit
fine style.
Jupiter’s
head is well-engraved with great detail. The hair is usually biperpendicular, although in a few cases it is perpendicular (Fig.
. On the great majority of dies the
head is squarish, but a few are somewhat elongated (taller than wide) (Fig. 10). The overall impression is elegance. If
Jupiter looks powerful or arrogant, it’s not Cr. 53/1.
On the
reverse, the
trophy almost always has no base; a few dies have a small one"
Compared to 166/1
"Both sides of the Cr. 166/1 victoriati are quite sloppy--a feature they share with the Cr. 167/1 anonymous
denarii. Like the Cr. 167/1
denarii, these coins are light in
weight (minted on a
standard of about 2.7 grams for the victoriati and about 3.7 grams for the
denarii).
Jupiter’s
head is small, with a projecting hair beard and confused semi-perpendicular hair that usually has a few wild strands. One small group does have neat biperpendicular hair(Fig. 32). The small
trophy has a skirt but no greaves or base. The skirt usually is composed of five lines, but sometimes a cursory skirt looks more like two greaves with slanting ends on them. The
wreath held by
Victory is always below the spear."
Also worth mentioning my coin
weights in at 2.55. Similar to 166/1
What do you think 53/1 or 166/1 or something else?
