Pick AMNG I, 1, nos. 1436-1441 are the crescents with one
star; there are multiple specimens (known a century ago) for each of those, and I daresay there are other dies as well now. Then there are the crescents with two to seven stars. These coins are to be studied in the same terms as
campgates. Nicopolis is not the only city,
nor Thrace-Moesia Inferior the only region, to
mint them. In some sense I suppose it's Septimius's luck or destiny.
Pat L.
Die antiken Münzen Nord-Griechenlands, I, 1.
Your coin has the same
obv. legend as 1440, but as you see it's a different die; 1440 has the same*
rev. legend as the
CoinArchives one, so that, for once, 1440 is probably an accurate and adequate ID for it. Yours has an entirely different, continuous,
rev. legend, which agrees with those of 1438, which does not guarantee that they'd look alike. A one-star crescent might even have have the same
obv. die as some multiple-star crescent or some other subject altogether.
Did you notice that 1440 accidentally omits the rho but ends in omega, whereas yours and 1438 ends in pros istr , leaving you to guess whether he was thinking omega or omicron (probably the latter, which is commoner)?
*Steve Minnoch kindly called to my attention that even ending in omega without the preceding rho is no proof that
Pick 1440 is the same coin as the
CoinArchives one, since 1440 does not spell out
NIKOPOLITÔN but instead found space only for
NIKOPOLI. I do think one could assemble (as my allusion to
Campgates suggests) more dies for these than you'd care to count, but I don't have many myself. Wouldn't mind getting a seven-star one (
Pick 1431) of which he knew only a single specimen, no. 840 in Postolakas' wonderful
Athens catalogue, one of the most careful in descriptions in the whole 19th century.
