Septimius Severus, Alexandria, Mars

[maridvnvm]

The style of the denarii from the mint of Alexandria is a bit of an acquired taste. I must admit to being more that a little smitten with them.

I have just added the following example to my small collection:-

Septimius Severus denarius
Obv:– IMP CAE L SEP - SEV PERT AVG, laureate head right
Rev:– P M TR P III COS II, Mars advancing right, holding spear in right hand, trophy over left shoulder
Minted in Alexandria. A.D. 195
Reference:– BMCRE 328 (Same rev die?). RIC 350D (R – B M). RSC 397a.
ex - Barry Murphy collection (sold in 2003).

It is quite a nice example especially when you take into account that so many of the coins we see from this mint are quite poor.

Regards,
Martin

[Pscipio]

Alexandrian denarii rarely come this nice. A great coin all around!

Lars

[David Atherton]

An exceptional coin! A very lucky find.

[dougsmit]

The first of these was Roger Bickford-Smith's coin via the CNG sale.  The second came from a friend a couple years later but adds some legend missing on my first.  As was said above, nice Alexandria are hard to find so we are happy to have OK ones as well. 

[Steve E]

Looks to me like Doug's 1st coin is a die match to yours

Nice coins!
~Steve

[maridvnvm]

Steve,
You are correct but what is of even more interest to me is that Doug's 2nd coin comes from a completely different die pair. With many of these scarcer coins from the less favoured mints we can find examples from a single reverse die, paired with perhaps a couple of obverse dies, this can give an artificial indication of scarcity of the type. Seeing another reverse die implies double the volume produced. Combining this with an obverse die that I don't have an example of makes this a very interesting coin to me and more for me to aim at with my slowly growing collection of coins from this mint.
Regards,
Martin