Matching dies on early Titus denarii

[Luuk S]

Hi all
Yesterday i received a nice denarius of Titus from early on in his reign (struck 24th june-31 dec 79 AD), showing Ceres on the reverse.
However, i just noticed that the obverse has a matching die with another Titus denarius in my collection, showing Annona. That one is also from 79 AD.
I dont know if it's really special to have two coins with different reverses but matching obverses, but i thought was nice to share with you guys
Also cool to speculate what these coins might have encountered during their time of circulation, being struck within months (or even days?) of the Vesuvius eruption, and maybe still circulating in Rome around the time of the opening games in the Colosseum

Gr Luuk

[SC]

Interesting.

What did you do in the bottom photos?  Cut into quarters and insert from alternating coins??

SC

[Luuk S]

Yeah i cut the pictures in 4 parts and overlapped them with two parts of original coin with two parts of the other coin. It helps to identify them as matching dies

[curtislclay]

Your Annona and Ceres types, along with the dated type TR POT VIII COS VII, captive kneeling below trophy, comprised Titus' first issue of denarii as Augustus, obviously struck between 24 June 79, when Vespasian died and Titus became Augustus, and 1 July 79, when Titus became TR P VIIII, whereas on the dated type of the first issue he is still TR P VIII. See RIC Titus 1-3.

So it is no surprise, but still nice confirmation of the apparent simultaneity of these three rev. types, to observe that examples of at least two of them were struck from the same obv. die. A nice coincidence that two such die-linked denarii found their way into your collection!

[clueless]

 A neat trick to cut and paste the pictures the way you did. One to remember

Clueless

[Luuk S]

Your Annona and Ceres types, along with the dated type TR POT VIII COS VII, captive kneeling below trophy, comprised Titus' first issue of denarii as Augustus, obviously struck between 24 June 79, when Vespasian died and Titus became Augustus, and 1 July 79, when Titus became TR P VIIII, whereas on the dated type of the first issue he is still TR P VIII. See RIC Titus 1-3.

So it is no surprise, but still nice confirmation of the apparent simultaneity of these three rev. types, to observe that examples of at least two of them were struck from the same obv. die. A nice coincidence that two such die-linked denarii found their way into your collection!

That's really cool to be able to accurately pinpoint the date of these coins to a single week in history! My previous 'record' was accuracy to a single month (Nerva COS IIII denarius). Hopefully i will find a denarius with matching die with the TRP VIII reverse to complete this series

[Jay GT4]

Very nice additions.  As Curtis mentioned, confirmation of the coins being struck simultaneously.  There are a few Flavian collectors here.  Check mine, David, Andrew's or Alberto's gallery to spot other die links.

Several miles exist where an inverse of Titus is used with a reverse of Vespasian.  In fact there are enough of them that they have their own RIC numbers!

https://www.forumancientcoins.com/gallery/displayimage.php?pos=-156186