A
choice acquisition, apparently the best of only three known specimens of this exact As! And very underpriced, certainly worth three times what you paid for it.
The other two examples are the
Paris specimen described by
Cohen 669, and a specimen acquired by the BM in 1991 from my first
collection. Both are from the same pair of dies as Gabriel's.
The
Paris specimen is
very fine but overcleaned and slightly
tooled, especially on the
obverse.
Mine/the BM's is almost VF on the
obverse, without tooling or damage, but only F on the
reverse, weakly struck and somewhat scratched. I acquired it from
Spink c. 1970.
Recently a new variety of this As has turned up: the same
rev. die, but
obv. just ANTONINVS -
PIVS AVG, laureate, draped,
cuirassed right, rather than laureate, draped only as on the dated
obv. die. I know two specimens, both in my new
collection: one VF from an
NFA sale of 1984 (I only acquired it about 20 years later), and one
poor, from an Alex
Malloy sale in 1995.
