Constantinus, VOT XXX in wreath, unlisted mintmark RSL.

[Zenon M]

Good morning everybody and a happy New Jear!

Yesterday the postman brought me a little self-purchased present - a rather battered Constantinian copper

obv.: CONSTANTI-NVS MAX AVG (bust E8)
rev.: D N CONSTANTINI MAX AVG; VOT / XXX in wreath
in ex.: RSL

1,82 g, 19-21 mm, 5h

It bears a very strong resemblance to existing pieces with a RFP mintmark in all details, so (despite of it's low weight) I consider the possibility of it being an "official", not imitative coin.
What is you opinion?

Zenon M.

[Vincent]

Thank you for bringing this unusual piece to the table. In style it looks as an official execution and other than the exergue letters and the fabric of the flan, I would say it was not an imitative issue.
It really appears as a Rome issue. If it is, wonder why the letters RSL? The lightweight could be partially due to the poor flan.
See if others have an opinion, before I go on further.

[Heliodromus]

Interesting coin. I agree that it looks official. Everything looks right. Odd mintmark, although I guess somewhat in keeping with the RFP and RBP issues (presumably Roma Felix, Roma Beata). It seems the "S" would have to be the officina, but it's not obvious what the "L" might stand for.

Ben

[Vincent]

Yes, I feel better you think it is official too. Perhaps it was a trail strike? It's just a hunch, but that's what it looks like to me. That would help explain the underweight, crude flan.  I think you are correct the RSL stands for Rome, Second workshop and L(?). What would be some classic Latin words that would mean "test strike". Maybe the "l" stands for Liberty?
That is another possibility. Ironic given that Constantine was an autocratic ruler!

[Vincent]

Also, this was a relative scarce, short lived issue and commemorates a special event and there appears to have been an irregular series of mint marks according to LRBC (Kent) and RIC. Maybe the mint officials were trying to establish a sequence that would work?

[SC]

Interesting piece.

The conventional wisdom is that the VOT XXX was only struck at Rome very late, in 329 - 330, unlike at Heraclea where the type was struck 325 - 330 and Ticinum where it was only struck 325, and possibly into early 326, before the mint closed.

Rome continues to be unusual in this 324 - 330 period.  Note Lars Ramskold's recent work on the dynastic series of anepigraphic coinjs which postulates a later second series at Rome circa 328 - 329.

It would appear to indicate a new mint mark of RPL.  We already have RP 324 - 326, R P 326 - 328 and RFP 329 - 330.

Shawn

[Zenon M]

Thank you very much for your answers!
Perhaps L stands for LAETA (Roma felix / beata / laeta or Roma Semper Laeta)? As we all know, this word did appear on VLPP coins several years earlier.
In the last years I managed to assemble a nice collection of Constantinian vota coins, but this piece is a very special one - despite of its imperfection...

Zenon M.

PS. I've read Lars Ramskold's interesting article on "anepigraphs" already - I think, my coin could be another puzzle piece in an attempt to understand the chronology.

[Lech Stępniewski]

Perhaps L stands for LAETA (Roma felix / beata / laeta or Roma Semper Laeta)?

So there is no officina letter?

RLS could be a nice unlisted mintmark (or RLP, RLT, RLQ). R[oma] L[aeta] officina S. But S in the middle is highly unexpected. Not absolutely impossible, but very odd.

Of course, it is also not absolutely impossible to find a first example of an unlisted mintmark with an engraver's error. But I wouldn't bet on it.

[SC]

I was assuming that the S in the middle was the officina mark.  As Lech says, that would be unusual but not impossible.  I can only think of the very odd TSAVI (with its TSBVI, TS VI, TS VI etc ) of Thessalonika in the early 320s in terms of  other roughly contemporary examples.  Are there others?

As Ben says it is an interesting mint mark in light of the odd Roman mint marks RFP (329 - 330) and RBP (331).

Of course, despite that fact that the style looks quite good, given the strange flan of this unique example, the unknown mint mark and the odd structure of the mint mark itself I think that we also have to leave the possibility that it is an imitation open.

Shawn

[romeman]

Ouch, crawling out of my den again, sniffing the air, blinking at the light, did I hear someone mention the Mint of Rome under Constantine? What's this coin all about? Interesting. Every aspect of the style is official. The thin flan can be explained by repeated striking, which may also be indicated by the extent of metal outside the pearl-ring. Repeated striking may indicate features being doubled or absent. I have amazing coins, for example with legend VIRTVS VIRTVS, flawless, produced by double striking. Others with half/double/altered letters due to double striking. But this one appears to have been engraved RSL. Hmm ...

The R stands, of course, for Rome. To evaluate the S, I have compared the style with my collection of VOT XXX coins of the RP and the RFP and the branch-RFP-branch issues. Especially the shape of the wreath ties, and the position of the rosettes in the diadem agree well with officina S specimens, but less so with officina P ones. The closest comparisons are with RIC 322, officina S. So it appears likely that the S in RSL indicates the second officina. Remains the L. I have no record of anything even remotely similar. Symbols (like star, branch, or whatever) are regularly placed after the mint and officina, but the series mint-officina-letter is unknown from Rome during this period.

The suggestion that it represents an unrecorded issue from Rome is interesting but I would say that the chances are very small. RIC appears to indicate several extremely rare issues, from Rome and other mints, but after having seen a much larger material than Patrick Bruun did, I have found that for bronze, there are almost no exceedingly rare issues, from any mint, from any time. In absolute terms, the highest rarity is reached when a single pair of dies were used, and used for a short time only. But under Constantine, this never happened. Coins were invariably struck for several members of the imperial houses. In spite of the infinitely small number of coins - out of those struck -  preserved to this day, even the most short-lived issues are well represented. For the Mint of Rome, one might mention the issue listed under RIC 372, based on a single coin for Constantine. I have the full issue, for all rulers, only Constantinopolis remains to be found. Or take RIC 388-90. The full issue is known, with many coins of each type. And so on. A completely unrecorded issue would need at least two coins to support it. Any "unique" coin can be doubted on many grounds.

Since some have speculated that this coin might be a contemporary imitation, it might be of use to mention that a whole handful of "unrecorded issues" from the mints or Arelate and Treveri are in fact based of well made contemporary imitations. More of that elsewhere if anyone is interested.

At this time, the Mint of Rome struck a few short-lived issues. The most notable one would be the branch-RFP-branch issue. Bruun noted only  a few examples, and none for Constantine. I attach an officina S example for Constantine.

Maybe some readers will be interested to note that in the preceding issue, RIC 321 sadly does not exist. Well, the coin itself exists, in the BM, but it is a forgery. It was made by grinding down the reverse of a genuine Thessalonika coin, painting the design in wax on the smooth surface, etching the surface with acid, and then repatinating the coin. The BM was fooled, and so was Bruun and everyone else. It has some importance simply because some weight has been attached to this "unique" coin in attempts at finding out when Constantine was born. If this coin was issued in 329, and if it celebrated his 50th birthday (as many have postulated), he would have been born in 279, and would have been 58 when he died. Unfortunately, the PLVRA NATAL FEL is a forgery and other evidence must be used.

My apologies if I have bored you with a lot of technical details. I find these coins fascinating and beautiful.

Back to my den.

/Lars

[Heliodromus]

Nice coin, Lars! Thanks for posting it.

Too bad about RIC 321, but at least I can cross it off my want list! I assume you've examined the BM coin in hand to come to this conclusion? What type was the reverse originally, and what remains of it that you were able to recognize it?

I'd certainly be interested to hear what you have to say about Arelate and Treveri imitations.

Ben

[romeman]

This thread is really about the RSL coin, so I will try to be short (not my style, though). The full evidence about the PLVRA NATAL FEL forgery will be published elsewhere, but I'll show a few details. I have examined the coin more than once, but publication is not uncomplicated since the BM wishes to supply their own photographs of coins, at very high cost, and those photographs are sadly not very good. I attach a few details from my own images, taken under very primitive circumstances. I have no idea if proper photos can be obtained, since I have found it impossible to make professional museum photographers understand the difference between esthetics and information (during the years I worked in a museum I ended up taking all photos myself, much to the relief of the museum photographers who were not too keen on working anyway).

Detail 2 here shows part of the lower reverse area. Note the shape of the leaves of the wreath. One can see that they were painted, not engraved. Also note that all raised areas are flat-topped (when seen in profile all raised areas of the reverse form a perfectly flat surface, the result from grinding down the relief before painting and etching). Note the "pearl-ring", which is a band along the edge of the coin, not a series of mounds.

Detail 1 shows the 12 o'clock flan crack. When the coin was painted in wax before etching, the crack was filled. When the surface was etched, this resulted in the raised flanges of the sides of the crack. This alone proves beyond doubt how the forgery was produced.

There are no remains whatsoever of the original reverse. The attribution to Thessalonika is on obverse style alone. There is a very slight possibility that another eastern mint could have produced the coin, but the overwhelming majority of comparable obverses come from Thessalonika. I continue my search for a die match of the obverse.

This is boring, technical detail that will interest very few people. The conclusions, however, have some more general meaning. Don't for a second think that all coins in museum collections are genuine. Don't for a second think that the curators will accept that they have forgeries they have missed. Don't ever base any conclusions on stamp-size images of coins, only magnification and detailed examination can permit anything remotely close to authentication.

All for now.

/Lars

[romeman]

Dear Zenon,

You were certainly right to buy the coin. And even more right in posting it on FORVM. So many interesting coins are hidden in collections, and we have no idea that they exist (I am a culprit myself, obviously, with a large number of undescribed coins, but I am working on several large publications where they will be included).

It is exceedingly difficult to draw a line between official and unofficial coins. One reason for this is that, although counterfeiting was illegal and severely punished, the products of such counterfeiting were perfectly acceptable in the monetary system, as is shown by hoard evidence. That is, even very crude imitations were accepted as legal tender, they didn't even need to be somewhere near the weight standard because the weight range of the official coins varied enormously.

That means that there was no incentive for counterfeiters to produce detailed imitations. A crude likeness was perfectly sufficient. And in the Balkans that is what we see in the zillions of VLPP imitations found there.

In the west, the situation was a bit different. The crude imitations exists, but there is also a large number of very well made imitations, some of which are exceedingly well made, and there are many coins which cannot be identified as either official or unofficial. I have collected such coins for decades, and hope to publish a paper on them. There are many coins where only a single letter, like a reversed S or N, or some other small detail questions the official origin of the coin. And then it is important to realise that not all official coins were perfect. I have a good collection of unambiguously official coins with spelling mistakes. Celators were human. They got tired, or bored, or stressed, or were just beginners, or even apprentices, and they made mistakes.

There is another aspect as well. I think there is some evidence that the official celators did some work on the side. Much like the clothes factories in Asia today produce official fashion house products during the day and illegally sold ones during the night (I've been in such factories and seen it done). There are indications that some celators used their skill also outside the official mints. I guess it can never be proven, but it certainly makes sense.

So, where does your coin fit in all this. I wish I could say something more definite. I am convinced that the dies were produced by an official celator. It is likely, but not certain, that it was produced in the official mint of Rome. It is probable that it is a one off, meaning only one such reverse die was made. It is possible that the mintmark was an error made by the celator. It is possible but unlikely that it was a new mintmark which was quickly abandoned. And finally, it is possible that it is a freak of striking.

I don't think it is possible to get much further without a die match of either the obverse or the reverse, or the find of another coin with a RSL (or RPL) mintmark.

Sorry for being unable to write short posts.

/Lars

[SC]

We would all be much poorer if you only wrote short posts Lars!

Shawn

[Vincent]

Thank you, Dr. Ramskold for sharing your insight and knowledge of these. I also find it extremely interesting and valuable in regard to my limited study of LRBC and opens my eyes as far as the details are concerned. I've been "following" your collecting journey for some time now and am awestruck by your dedication. Looking forward to the completion of your research in book form. Will be on the lookout for unlisted or "rare' Rome issue that may help you.

[Heliodromus]

There are no remains whatsoever of the original reverse. The attribution to Thessalonika is on obverse style alone. There is a very slight possibility that another eastern mint could have produced the coin, but the overwhelming majority of comparable obverses come from Thessalonika. I continue my search for a die match of the obverse.

Lars,

It's certainly an odd looking coin in close up! It doesn't look struck. As you say odd wreath, odd border, crack flanges, and also the tightly grouped (vs spaced out) RP mintmark is not what one would expect for the mint/period. I suspect you're right about it being fake. However, to my eye the obverse may be from Rome rather than elsewhere, and it would make more sense for someone going to such an effort to use an appropriately dated/styled Rome coin as a starting point.

Having previously assumed the coin was genuine (and presumably dated to Constantine's vicennalia), I've also been looking for die matches to it with the purpose of trying to prove that the laureate VOT XXX type from Rome dates to 325-326 rather than later. While I havn't found a  match, some of the Rome VOT XXX obverses are certainly close (and the preceding campgate issue has some too). The style is also close to early Constantinople (the wavy hair of RIC 321 better matches there).

Ben

[romeman]

Thanks Shawn and Vincent and Ben for your comments. I am always amazed that someone actually reads anything I write. But now I see a need to diverge a bit into mint style.

The style of the obverse of RIC 321 indicates an eastern mint. There are, to my knowledge, no wreaths from the mint of Rome showing the continuous line between the leafs. That is a feature figuring prominently especially at Thessalonica, but also sometimes at other eastern mints. There may be the odd example from a western mint (I am sure there are), but western mints show other characteristics absent in this coin.

I haven't looked at this matter for some years, and now the lovely Coinproject site makes comparisons a bit easier (Thanks Alfredo for doing this for us!). After a new comparison tonight with more examples, I now come to the conclusion that Siscia is the leading candidate, with Thessalonika coming in as second. I attach some images to show this (coin ID's are from Coinproject and Wildwinds). All Thessalonika and Siscia coins have PROVIDENTIAE AVGG reverses.

If anyone of you has better comparisons I would be very grateful to learn about them.

/Lars

[Vincent]

Dr. Ramskold you seem to have ample examples for your hypothesis. It appears Siscia is indeed the likely one, that's my vote at least. Not many numismatists would have your fortitude, nor your "eye" to judge such. Too bad it appears to be a "fantasy"
piece. One type that has been referred to in many reference works and other literature I have read.

[Vincent]

First is another "official" example of the VOTXXX coin with the mintmark "RP" to compare with the "RSL" mintmark.  The obverse is almost a die match!

The second plate is from Victor Clark's site of Constantine coins of the PLVRA coin Dr. Lamskold reviewed (along with another as Caesar)  Below it I posted  an obverse example from the Rome mint to compare with the plate coins of Siscia and Thessalonica, which Dr. Ramskold shown as possible candidates for the PLVRA issue (made into a fantasy issue). Notice there is "no line" in the laurel wreath from the Rome issue.

[Zenon M]

Thank you very much for this example of VOT XXX.
The similarities are obvious - look also at the shape of the "X's" on the reverse...

Zenon M.

[romeman]

This old thread can perhaps be revived. I have found a second example of the RSL emission. This coin and that of zenon are struck from different obverse and reverse dies. Apparently they indicate that there was indeed an emission mint marked RSL.

As regards the interpretation of RSL, I still have no convincing explanation. Perhaps someone else has?

[Lech Stępniewski]

I have found a second example of the RSL emission.

This very specimen was sold on eBay in February 2017, three years ago. And of course was immediately presented on my NOT IN RIC page. Perhaps you should visit it more often 

https://www.forumancientcoins.com/notinric/7rom-321.html

[Heliodromus]

The way the hair is engraved seems to offer a strong clue to the ordering of this RSL mintmark.

Per examples I have seen:

On RIC 318 (RP), with laureate bust, the hair at the top of the head always runs in a shallow "U" shape roughly horizonatal.

On RIC 320 (RP), of the 6 specimens I have photos of, 3/6 have this horizontal hair, per preceding RIC 318, and 3/6 have hair angled 45 degrees downward as in the following RFP mark

On RIC 322 (RFP) I have only seen the hair angled 45 degrees downward, and the two unlisted RFP+palms specimens also follow this pattern.

For this RSL mark, Zenon's specimen certainly has the early "horizontal " hair, and zooming in on the other specimen it seems to be the same.

Based on this hirsutical analysis, I'd suggest that the RSL mark most likely comes between RIC 318 and 320 (i.e. it's the first mark to have the diademed bust), or possibly after it, and in any case before the RFP mark. This arrangement also has the RFP mark running continuously into the Gloria Exercitvs series, without having the RSL as an end-of-issue VOT XXX interruption.

Coins below are all mine, with exception of Zenon's RSL.

Ben

[romeman]

I have found a second example of the RSL emission.

This very specimen was sold on eBay in February 2017, three years ago. And of course was immediately presented on my NOT IN RIC page. Perhaps you should visit it more often 

Dear Lech, your site is very useful and I consult it regularly. I didn't need to for this coin because it was I who bought it in 2017. To my knowledge, it hasn't been discussed on this or any other forum and I have been busy with other projects. I am now getting closer to revising Constantine's bronze coinage of Rome. So I think it is appropriate to post it here and now, hoping that someone comes up with ideas that can help in understanding the type.

[romeman]

The way the hair is engraved seems to offer a strong clue to the ordering of this RSL mintmark.

Per examples I have seen:

On RIC 318 (RP), with laureate bust, the hair at the top of the head always runs in a shallow "U" shape roughly horizonatal.

On RIC 320 (RP), of the 6 specimens I have photos of, 3/6 have this horizontal hair, per preceding RIC 318, and 3/6 have hair angled 45 degrees downward as in the following RFP mark

On RIC 322 (RFP) I have only seen the hair angled 45 degrees downward, and the two unlisted RFP+palms specimens also follow this pattern.

For this RSL mark, Zenon's specimen certainly has the early "horizontal " hair, and zooming in on the other specimen it seems to be the same.

Based on this hirsutical analysis, I'd suggest that the RSL mark most likely comes between RIC 318 and 320 (i.e. it's the first mark to have the diademed bust), or possibly after it, and in any case before the RFP mark. This arrangement also has the RFP mark running continuously into the Gloria Exercitvs series, without having the RSL as an end-of-issue VOT XXX interruption.

Coins below are all mine, with exception of Zenon's RSL.

Ben

Thanks Ben for interesting comparisons! In my archive, RIC 320 has 50/50 "U-shape" and "45 degrees" hair, just like in your material. But of 18 RIC 322, 4 have the "U-shaped" hair (1 off P, 3 off S) and 14 the "45 degrees" hair. I attach two of the "U-shaped" hair ones.

This distribution indicates that the transition from the "U-shaped" hair to the "45 degrees" hair was gradual and uneven.

My RSL coin is horrible, mistreated beyond comprehension by the finder or seller, but the hair is definitely "U-shaped". A poor photo of the obverse is attached below.

No matter the hair, I think that you are quite right about the chronology. The RSL emission must fit in before the RFP, and perhaps even slightly earlier. I hope to be able to pinpoint it better before I publish the Rome coinage.