Hello everybody,
I've just read
Curtis’ questions in the
Forum.
---MULES---
The only reference I have about an over struck is the one published from the Dorchester
hoard. I don't know any picture of it.
I have all Divi from BM and there is not any over struck there. I have the suspicion that this coin is now in some private
collection, perhaps yours
Curtis. I say that because some times only a
part of the
hoard goes to the museum and the other
part is sold by the discoverer of the
hoard after published. I have lot of pictures and usually when some coin appears in a
catalogue I already have its picture registered from another sale. Some years ago an antoninian restoring VESPASIANO appear in an
auction here in
Spain. This coin was already registered in my data basis but not coming from an
auction but the publication of a
French hoard. After a short research I find out that the main
part of the
hoard was sold by the "owner" after it was published. I bought this coin at a reasonable
price. Is your coin,
Curtis, restoring
AUGUSTO? Perhaps you have in your
collection a coin with a brilliant "
pedigree" too.
The two
mules with
reverse IVNONI MARTIALI have the same
reverse die and the same one that the coins of
VOLUSIAN I mentioned.
There is one more
mule, in BM, restoring VESPASIANO. The
reverse is
VICTORIA AUG, too common
type to try to discover a coincident
reverse, too huge task. The worst is its bad preservation state. I think is a not workable coin.
So, total
mules known = 3
---FOURRE---
By the way, I recently discovered the only known (I think) “fourré”, restoring VESPASIANO and really bad preserved.
---- DATING ----
Talking about dating, I'm only sceptical of the attempts to date this series on hypothesis not contrasted (1).The only fact useful to date these coins is the die link of the
mules and some other coins in the series. I
hope in a short time to have the link between the mule's tree (16 coins today) and the main tree (750 coins today).
I think (I have not the evidence) that 500 dies that were consumed in sequence (proved) don't have I life longer than a few months, they must not be a task that passed along more than a ruler. This ruler or better rulers, I think, were Gallus with
Volusian. Duncan-Jones have some estimations, depending on the ruler, 2000 or 3000 dies may be consumed
per year. Then Divi Series may have been produced in 3 months of full time
work. Let’s remember they all (75% at the research moment) were produced in sequence (die linked)
---AVERAGE WEIGHT---
I think it's important that every time we mention an
average weight we refer the set(number of coins) used to calculate it.
In case of Divi the
average is 3,78gr and the set, 600 coins. This
average has not changed since the set
had only 400 coins.
So, I think that working with sets of 500 coins may give us an
average acceptable.
I've read some articles that show discrepant averages of
weight, the number of coins studied was too low or unpublished.
Let's calculate the
weight averages of antoninians using sets of 500 coins, it's not difficult and it'll be very useful.
Over struck coins may give a discrepant
average weight on its coins, but if the frequency of over struck is the same for Divi that other antoninians (pre and post) the problem doesn't exist.
---DIE LINK TREE---
The struck sequence shows that all coins involved were struck in the same
mint. With only 1000 the 75% of coins are joined in the same tree (sequence) other are not yet linked, but my experience with the last 200
additions to the register makes me believe that more and more coins will be linked if the register increase. I understand that Divi
mules, the antoninian of
Volusian linked with them and the
standard Divi coins also linked were all produced in the same
mint.
---CELATORS 1,2,3,4,…---
I hate to talk about typologies but the temptation is hard. Some months ago a partner in the
Forum asked me about how many different "
hands" appear on the reverses. I send him a selection and we didn't agree, whether 4 or 7. This different styles are evident in all reverses and some emperors like
NERVA, with PIUS is completely impossible. I'm thinking to send a selection of styles to the
forum.
---RELATIVE RARITY----
I'll send you a graphic about the relative
rarity for every emperor, I
hope you will receive it correctly, some times the graphic crashes when is sent by mail. I considered that the
rarity of some emperors could be caused by a
Damnatio memoriae, but it isn't. The number of coins known for every ruler match with the number of original dies estimated for him.
(1) I try to follow Karl’s Popper methodology. “The Logic of Scientific Discovery”. We can talk about it in a specific topic
Regards
Joaquim Blay