A bust-left Antoninus Pius sestertius with short obv. legend in 139?

[curtislclay]

[ANT]ONINVS - AVG PIVS P P Bust laureate, draped l., seen from side

[ TR POT - COS II] S - C Fides standing r. holding two wheat ears downwards and plate of fruit before face

AE 30-31, 22.97g, axis 5h, dealer's picture below. Bust var. of Strack 804 (there with standard Head laureate r.)

Unfortunately the only remains of the rev. legend are S - C in field, and what might be the bottom of the R of TR POT just below and to the l. of that S in field.

Strack 804 records a corresponding TR POT COS II Fides standing dupondius in Berlin, with Head radiate left on obv., though not draped. But this might be the first recorded bust-left sestertius with short obv. legend ANTONINVS AVG PIVS P P in 139, provided that I am restoring the rev. legend correctly as showing additional imperial titles including COS II.

Later uses of the obv. legend ANTONINVS AVG PIVS P P on bronze coins of Pius: with rev. legends

TR POT COS III S C
IMP II TR POT COS III S C
TR POT COS III DES IIII S C
TR POT COS IIII S C
COS IIII S C with further descriptive legend
TR POT XXIIII COS IIII S C (dupondii and asses only)

However no coins with these rev. legends are recorded as showing the Fides standing rev. type.

That Fides standing rev. type was indeed repeated in 143-4 AD on sestertii with legend

IMPERATOR II S C,

sometimes combined with bust types Laureate, draped r. or Head laureate l. which are reminiscent of my new coin, but on these sestertii the obv. legend was always

ANTONINVS AVG PIVS P P TR P COS III (Strack 933),

i.e. adding TR P COS III to the obv. legend which are absent on my coin.

So I am fairly confident that TR POT COS II S C must have been the original rev. legend on my new coin. Confirmation or correction would be welcome, however! Does anyone possess or know of another sestertius of Pius struck from the same obv. die as my coin, or struck from the same rev. die but with readable circular legend, and with either the same or another bust type on obverse?

[curtislclay]

Here is a second specimen of the bust left dupondius of 139 corresponding to my new sestertius, reported by Strack 804 from a specimen in Berlin, as mentioned above.

Savoca Coins, Blue 17, 2 March 2019, 1471, dealer's picture, 12.57g, 6h.

[Diederik]

I could compare 3 reverses of the Strack 804, neither of which was a match to yours, but I also have 6 reverses of the IMPERATOR II reverse, which were none the better. What struck me in comparing the pictures is, that the dishes on the later type seem to be wider than on the AD 139 specimens.
Of the dupondius you show, I have two Felicitas examples which are obverse die-matches with an exact position of the A of AVG and a 'low-hanging' G.
I do not have any PIVS PP sestertii with left bust.
So, unfortunately I cannot be of great help here.

Frans

[curtislclay]

Frans,

Thanks for checking!

Maybe there was only one Head-left dupondius obv. die with this short legend in 139, since you say that your two Felicitas examples are from the same obv. die as the Savoca Fides piece that I reproduce above, and since the same seems to be true of a Pax standing coin, a variety not recorded by Strack 808, that was in iNumis 14, 25 March 2011, lot 241, see dealer's picture from CoinArchives below.

We would still have to check the Fides coin in Berlin recorded by Strack 804, and the Felicitas example in Vienna noted by Strack 803.

[Diederik]

Die Staatliche Museen in Berlin are online now, but I could not find the coin Strack saw in the collection. there are suspiciously few coins of Pius online, for which I cannot find a reason.Here's a link which will held (I hope) https://ikmk.smb.museum/tray?lang=en&id=18215195

Frans

[curtislclay]

Searching for "Antoninus Pius dupondius" produced only a pitiful harvest: seven middle bronzes, of which only three were of Pius himself!

[Diederik]

This cannot be the collection Strack once saw.... War-damage?

F

[curtislclay]

I suspect defective search engine, or faulty entry into the database for many coins.

I have never heard of serious WW II plundering losses to the Berlin collection.

The only "Kriegsverlust 1945" losses reported in Dressel's catalogue of the Roman medallions in Berlin: ten fake medallions, casts or from modern dies. Presumably their cabinet of fakes was left in Berlin, while the main collection had been removed to a safer secret location.