Left facing Victorinus Versus Laelian

[apgrassman]

Hi All

Having added another left facing Victorinus to my Gallic collection from a local coin fair, sounds good (like shelling peas) i now have two, i wondered how rare the left facing victorinus were compared to the coins of laelian and marius unfortunately i do not have a copy of Cuntio. 

The reason i ask is i paid what i thought was a very good price for my left facing victorinus, but also saw a laelian very nice coin for over £1,000 as a fellow collector said to me seems a lot for a bronze although rare.

I also noted that joe hasnt had a laelian for sale for while.

Interestingly IMHO i bought a large group of gallic last year, but couldnt afford them all quite a few lots, from a hoard found in the 1900's (unrecorded)and according to the auction catalogue there was 1 laelian, 5 marius and lots of postumus, victorinus, tetricus 1 and 11 with numerous barbarous radiates still sorting through, although i did ask questions last year about the C/A postumus and tetricus nobilitas that i had found on this forum.  But no left facing victorinus in the hoard.

Anyway hopefully someone will be able to shed some light,  or any thoughts you may have as always gratefully received.

Now where did i put that double headed tetricus!!!!!

Regards

apgrassman

[Pekka K]

From Cunetio 7196 Victorinus only 4 are left facing (#2569).
Amount of Laelians is 39.

Pekka K

[apgrassman]

Thanks Pekka

so i assume that the left facing coins of victorinus are a lot rarer than laelian, which then leads to the question of why the large price difference between the two, i guess collectors who want one of each roman emperor push the price up.

Regards

apgrassman

[areich]

I think you're right, fewer collectors care about rarer variants of a common emperor than about rarer emperors.

[Adrianus]

Yes, that's the case. I would say that one can pick up a left-facing Victorinus for quite a bit less than a Laelian. I have several Victorinus left facers (well 4 and most are pretty bad) but only one Laelian - and that was a lucky spot in a junk box. As you might expect from a junk box it isn't very good either... But it's still a Laelian 
It's funny that most left-facing Victorinus are martial busts with PIETAS AVG reverses from the same set of dies. That die-pairing must have lasted a long time. Assuming all examples are genuine...
We had a thread on left-facing Victorinus some time ago I seem to remember 

Regards,

Adrianus

[Pscipio]

I've had two left facing Victorini so far, they are rare, but do show up from time to time. A pity the second had been overcleaned by someone who owned it before, but I really liked the Medusa head on the shield. Of course the portrait style is beautiful on that die anyways.

Lars

[Adrianus]

Hi Lars,

Good to hear from you again - I've not posted in a while. A long while... Guess I was having a bit of a break from coins 
I know you and Mauseus have a couple of examples from those dies and I'm aware of a few others floating around. It would be interesting to see how many survivors from these dies there are. Perahps a new thread should be started? They must be the most common survivors from any die pair around today?

Regards,

Adrianus

[Adrianus]

Hi again!

And apgrassman, since you started this thread, how about some pictures of the Laelian and left-facing Victorinus?

Regards,

Adrianus

[curtislclay]

Don't forget the antoniniani of Valerian I in the Eauze Hoard, 1184 specimens from one die pair, 1045 more from the same obv. die but a different rev. die, p. 281 in the publication!

[apgrassman]

OK here they are, thanks for all your responses to my original question.

The first is ex CNG, the second was the one i bought at the weekend, the third is one i found amongst the hoard coins i bought last year and appears to be a barbarous radiate of tetricus with divo pio eagle reverse interesting.

Sorry no laelian although it was a fantastic coin, the wife would have killed me!!!!! and as a lot of collectors will know you need them on your side.

Regards

apgrassman

[apgrassman]

Pscipio

Lovely left facing coins, a lot better than mine as you will see.

apgrassman

[dougsmit]

I think you're right, fewer collectors care about rarer variants of a common emperor than about rarer emperors.

While I agree with this, I'll go one further and suggest that being rare is less important than being Emperor - really Emperor.  Coins of Clodius Macer are expensive.  If Suetonius had called his book the 13 Caesars including Macer, the same number of coins would be ten times as high.  The great rarities of the Roman series tend to be guys who set up shop and got killed shortly after someone decided that they should not be calling themselves Augustus.  Later we get a few 'official' rare people who were a bit obscure (Constantia, Valens (the Licinius one) and Romulus) but who do you consider the most rare real honest-to-Jupiter ruler of at least a significant part of the Empire?  Pertinax? Didius? Some puppet of some German master of soldiers? Not Vetranio! Not Silbannicus! Not Domitian II! 

[Gavignano]

Just noting re the Laelianus, a friend found one awhile back in a batch of lousy uncleaned, and it is easily a 1000 USD find.

[Gavignano]

Re Doug's who is the toughest with his criteria of large rule, Didius is tougher than old Pertinax IMO, unless you go to ebay, where fake Pertinaxes are listed just about daily 

[Agrippa1]

Hello Apgrassman,

very nice coins; especially the left facing Victorinus with VICTORINVS P F AVG. There are only two types (SALVS AVG and PIETAS AVG) with this legend so a very hard to find obverse legend. I would prefer this coin above a more common Laelian.

Enclosed two Victorinus left bust coins from my collection:

a SALVS AVG without speer and shield and one off my "masterpieces" a PIETAS AVG with speer shield.

Best,

Jos

[Adrianus]

Hi all,

My four left facing Victorini. Quantity not quality I'm afraid....
I'm just starting to put up my coins of Victorinus on my gallery.

Regards,

Adrianus.