Volusian sestertius with medallion

[Marius]

About one in 300 sestertii of Gallus and Volusian use a die with the emperor's right shoulder back.  The dies are from medallions.  I cannot guess as to whether using the medallion obverse on some sestertii was intentional.  Here is an example I recently bought.
Richard Beale

[curtislclay]

The natural assumption is that the dies were cut for medallions but then transferred to the ordinary sestertius production, since they were still in good condition once the desired quantity of medallions had been produced.

[dupondius]

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[Mark Z]

Very nice!

I do have a question, though:

Aren't the medallions a bit larger in diameter than sestertii?

Or do these particular sestertii have the same diameter as the medallions?

thanks!

mz

[curtislclay]

Vice versa: these are medallion dies for silver medallions in sestertius size, so they are just the right size for sestertii!

[Marius]

I have recorded about 2500 sestertii of Gallus and Volusian.  Eight of them have medallion dies.  Here are two others from my collection.  I have a total of five.  The others I know of include: One sold by FORVM in about 2003 when I started collecting Gallus coins (I only noticed the bust type after it was sold), two were sold by CGB.fr around 2000.  
I've also attached a picture of a Volusian medallion (not my coin).
Richard

[Steve E]

Besides the difference in the shoulder, are there any other differences between the medallion dies and the normal ones made for the sestersi?

~Steve

[Marius]

Hi Steve,

The attitude of the shoulder is the only clear feature.  The engraving of these dies seems a bit more expert (a bit like comparing the dies of common antoninianii to those of aurei), but that doesn't show well on worn coins.

I am sure Curtis' explanation about why these dies were used for sestertii is correct - it was a good use of dies left over from medallion production which are never used to the point of deterioration. 

Richard

[Mark Z]

Are the reverse dies from the silver medallion production also used on these sestertii or were these medallion obverse dies paired up with regular sestertii reverse dies?

mz

[curtislclay]

Are the reverse dies from the silver medallion production also used on these sestertii or were these medallion obverse dies paired up with regular sestertii reverse dies?

The latter: the medallion reverse dies had types not usual on sestertii so were not reused.

Richard may correct me, but I think only one of these "seen from front" obv. dies on sestertii is also actually known on a medallion: the Volusian obv. die of Richard's first coin above was also used for the silver medallion Mazzini IV, pl. XI, 63, with rev. MONETA AVGG, the Three Monetae.

For the other bust-front sestertius obv. dies of this reign, I think we just assume that they were engraved and originally used as medallion dies, without having the actual medallions surviving to prove it.

There are cases in other reigns, for example Gordian III, when known medallion obv. dies can be shown to have also struck normal sestertii and asses.

[Marius]

Curtis, That is a pleasant surprise that the first Volusian coin I posted has a die match with a published sliver medallion - I had not known that and have not been able to match any of the nine sestertii I have pictures of (with bust fromt) to medals - but I only have two pictures of two sestertii sized AR medals of Gallus/Volusian- the picture above and a picture from the BM of a Gallus AR medal, also with 3 Monetae.
Richard

[aemilianus253]

Simply a wonderul find, Richard! Many compliments. 

Raffaele