Alexander Severus Liberalitas interesting Eastern denarius

[timka]

Hi,

This LIBERTAS denarius of Alexander Severus of Eastern mint seems to be interesting. First, there is a missing letter R on obverse. It reads IMP CM AV SEV... instead of IMP CM AVR SEV....But most of all, the reverse  appears very uncommon, if Im not confusing something. Generally, LIBERTAS reverse is very common, but the goddess holds pileus and sceptre, but in this case we see abacus and cornucopiae, which should go along with LIBERALITAS legend, but not LIBERTAS. So, it looks like unrecorded type, by RIC at least. Have you seen this type before?

ob. IMP C M AV (-) SEV ALEXAND AVG: Bust of Severus Alexander, laureate, draped, cuirassed, rev. LIBERTAS AVG: Liberalitas, draped, standing left, holding abacus in right hand and cornucopiae in left hand

Antioch (?)

RIC -

2,4g - 18 mm - 6h

Thank you for your time.

[curtislclay]

For comparison:

Same obv. die with AV for AVR in my collection, rev. Liberalitas standing with correct legend, [LIB]ERALITAS AV[G].

Liberalitas type with erroneous Libertas legend like yours, obverse legend presumably correct, noted by me from "D. Smith 155" (my note hard to read). Doug S. is active on Coin Talk, so you might want to ask there.

Liberalitas type with erroneous legend LIBERITAS AVG (AL omitted), obv. legend presumably correct, three spec. in Reka Devnia hoard p. 133, one illustrated on pl. V.

[Callimachus]

There seems to have been a lot of confusion between LIBERTAS and LIBERALITAS at the Easter mint.

Below is a link to a Severus Alexander denarius in my gallery with the LIBERTAS AVG legends, but with an image of Aequitas.

https://www.forumancientcoins.com/gallery/displayimage.php?pos=-152818

[timka]

Curtis, thank you for your overview about this type! It was nice to learn that same obverse was paired with both LIBERALITAS and LIBERTAS reverses!

I also wonder if those three LIBERITAS coins in Reka Devnia hoard are with abacus and cornucopiae, or with pileus and sceptre, as LIBERALITAS supposed to be? Unfortunately, I dont have the plates from RD hoard, only tables.  

I also came across another specimen from different obverse and reverse dies with LIBERTAS/abacus/cornucopiae- so it was not one time error!  this is the link:  https://www.acsearch.info/search.html?id=65380. May be sometime I reach out Doug to see if his coin is like mine or cgb's coin, or may be totally different dies.

Callimachus, thank you for sharing your curious coin - seeing Aequitas along with LIBERTAS  is so strange... but it is really cute. Very nice coin indeed.

[mix_val]

Hi Timka

Nice coin!
You may be interested to know that the obverse die (with missing R) has also been paired with reverse dies of AEQVITAS, PIETAS and VIRTVS.  And so now with your specimen and LIBERALITAS, five reverse dies have been paired with the same obverse die!  Obverse dies last longer because they are fixed in the anvil.
An old thread of the VIRTVS coin is provided in the link  

https://www.forumancientcoins.com/board/index.php?topic=37119.0


Bob

[timka]

Bob, thank you so much for your post and information! It is very interesting piece of info about the anvil, - finally I learned why obverses are so much better and sharper vs commonly weak reverses on almost all denarii. 

1 obverse for 5 reverses! - is not it an 'Olympic record' in the minting of Roman denarii???)))). I wonder if anyone recorded more combinations of reverses for single obverse.

 

[maridvnvm]

I can beat 5....

Septimius Severus, denarius, eastern mint, obverse legend "IMP CAE L SEP SEV PERT AVG II CO" all examples from a single obverse die

BONAE SPEI advancing l. (5 examples I can cite):-
BMC 341 pl. 15.12, Paris, one formerly H J Berk stock, two in my collection (3 different reverse . dies)
(see my example below)

BONI EVENTVC (sic), Fides standing l., (4 examples I can cite):-
Bern, one formerly H J Berk stock, two in my collection (all from same die pair),
(see my example below)

FELICITAS TEMPOR, wheat ear between two crossed cornucopias, (2 examples I can cite):-
Barry Murphy stock, 2003, my collection
(see my example below)

FORTVNAE REDVCI, Fortuna (pax?), with modius on head, seated left holding branch and cornucopia, (1 example I can cite):-
(see my example below)

INVICTO IMP TROPAEA, Trophy, (2 examples I can cite):-
Paris, my collection
(see my example below)

INVICTO IMP TROPAEA II, Trophy, (1 example I can cite):-
BMC 368 pl. 16.8
I don't have one of these

LEG VIII AVO (sic) TR P COS, eagle and standards, (3 examples I can cite):-
Oxford ex Walker, JNG 1978/1979, pl. 9, 4, my collection (same die pair)
(see my example below)

MINER VICT, Minerva seated left, holding victory in right hand, spear in left, shield beneath, (2 examples I can cite):-
benhur767 collection, my collection
(see my example below)

MONETAE AVG seated l. holding scales and cornucopia, (3 examples I can cite):-
Doug Smith, two examples from my collection (2 reverse dies)
(see my examples of each reverse die below)

VICTOR IVST AVG, Victory adv. l. holding wreath and palm, (2 examples I can cite):-
eBay, one example in my collection
[(see my example below)

This brings me (I think) to 11 reverse dies that I can cite from this obverse die.

[maridvnvm]

More

[mix_val]

Wow that is a really neat collection of die matches!
Does an obverse die last 10 times more strikes than a reverse die?  If no, it can't be reverse die wear that decides when to switch.  Maybe a paucity of anvil dies or something related to the minting procedure

[timka]

...wow, this is really great collection. I could not imagine such ratio 10 to 1 is possible. I wonder was such practice of numerous reverse dies with single obverse only specific to Eastern mints, and was it employed by Rome mint too? I only have several similar die matches from Rome, but only 2 to 1 so far, when obverse die was used with two reverses of the same type in transition from one TR P to the following TR P.    

[Heliodromus]

I seem to recall reading it was normal practice for the the obverse die to be the lower one, on the anvil, with the reverse die being the upper one that was struck. It's been speculated that this was to avoid "striking the emperor".

With the reverse die being the one that was directly struck, it presumably would have deteriorated faster than the lower obverse one, with the latter being "cushioned" by the flan absorbing most of the energy by way of deformation to take the pattern. This would generally explain why there was need for fewer obverse dies than reverse ones.

Perhaps specifics of minting practices at different mints and different times affected exactly how much faster the reverse dies needed replacing, and therefore the ratios observed. Variables like masses of the dies, hammer, anvil, speed of strike, ductility of the flan, would presumably all have made a difference.

The upper die being the reverse also explains why obverse brockages are more common than reverse ones, since a struck flan (with obverse design on it's lower surface) sticking to the (out of sight) upper die would have been less obvious than a flan struck to the lower die. The upper die taking more of the force of the strike may also have made it more likely for the flan to be bound more tightly to the die so as not to release.

Ben

Edit: I posted too fast - didn't realize that most of this has already been mentioned.

[timka]

Ben, thank you so much for further details on specifics of the minting process. Very much appreciated!

In this thread we all observed two evidences that Eastern mints employed very high ratio between obverse and reverse dies ( two recorded cases of 1:6, and 1:10). Of course, it would be very interesting to observe similar cases from Rome. So far Im only aware of 1 to 2 ratio.

I believe that in close future AI will be able to respond to such request in a second. All in all, so much visual data is on internet now, so that die study will be a way too easy task for AI. Who will be the first one to respond, Siri or Alexa?  

[Ron C2]

Some of the obverse strikes in maridvnvm's examples looks soft to me, though hard to tell given circulation wear.  It's possible (perhaps?) that some mints had a greater tolerance for how long they would continue using a die that had obvious wear.  To my eyes, wear evidence is most evident on the text moreso than the portraits.