Hi,
I recently bought a
Philip II Billon Tetradrachm from
Antioch:
McAlee 1043;
Prieur 473 (
Image 1, below).
When searching the coin in my references I saw that it matched the precise description of
SNG Copenhagen 268 which attributes it to
Philip I, not
Philip II.
Looking on
acsearch, I can see some dealers have identified this as an error in
SNG Copenhagen whilst one of the major
auction houses has at least on one occasion attributed a similar coin to
Philip I.
Image 2, below, is an example attributed to
Philip II. [
Edit: I added an
eagle facing right by mistake]
Image 3, below, is an example attributed to
Philip I, not
Philip II.
In the case of the coin in
Image 3, below, is there any difference that I have missed, or should this have been attributed to
Philip I. If
Philip I is correct, does this mean that similar coins were issued for both emperors. If so, how does one differentiate between them? The only difference I can see is that
Philip I looks slightly older (with a beard) as one might expect (and this is the case for the
SNG Cop 268 coin, which then does not explain why others have assumed its
attribution to
Philip I to be an error).
Edit: Looking at
BMC volume 20, I can see the same
type exist for both emperors:
BMC Syria 517 (
Philip I), 559-563 (
Philip II). Therefore assuming the only way to differentiate them is by the appearance of the Emperor. The plate for
SNG 268 is not particularly clear so hard to see if the emperor has a beard, he does look slightly older, but lacks that protruding jawline of
Philip I.
I am interested if anyone has any views or can better clarify the above.
Peter
