ROMAN EMPIRE, Domitian, Denarius

Silver denarius, Rome later part of 81 A.D., Carradice 81.2a, Cohen 58, RIC page 154 note; ex. Barry Murphy
IMP CAES DOMITIAN AVG PONT, laureate head right
P P COS VII DES VIII, Wreath set on curule chair.

Very rare with only a few surviving specimens, of which I can only confirm one in the Curtis Clay coll., struck from the same dies. Also this reverse die was used for the coin above (no. 160) and for the normal variant of this type struck with a different obverse die with DOMITIANVS. Another interesting feature is the oddly shaped V in AVG, which appears on other dies too and it is the "signature" of perhaps a Greek letter cutter. Read the full article by Christopher Lezak here. One of the pictured coins is the same mentioned above; it belonged to Mr. Lezak as well.