How much, if any, of the legends must be readable or present to have a legit attribution? For example, say a coin has a good depiction of the bust, the device on the rev, and a good mm, but few if any readable letters in the legend, and by reference to Sear the coin is identifiable. Is that a legit attribution?
This is an interesting question. Of course there are no rules, but don't suppose that this is only a worn
LRB dilemma. The same issue happens on all coins where control marks or key
legend varieties get offstruck, flat-struck or worn. Actual practice varies. Take the coin below:
http://www.acsearch.info/record.html?id=573694Nice enough to sell for CHF 3750 on an estimate of CHF 600, but the
legend is off
flan. Completely. On both sides. Because there's no snakes in
Medusa's hair, that leaves open that it might be
RRC 453/1c (L. PLAVTIVS PLANCVS) or
RRC 453/1d (L.PLAVTIVS PLANCV) or
RRC 453/1e (L.PLAVTIV PLANCVS).
- I'd have catalogued it as 453/1.
- NAC catalogued it as 453/1c (the first and most common possibility, but perhaps they checked the die against Banti so know it as such)
- Some might catalogue as 453/1c or 1d or 1d
- Some might catalogue it as just 453 (since defining a variety makes no sense when you can't read the legend).
I don't think it matters, but giving just a high level
Sear number (my equivalent to just using 453) is perfectly
fine, and if you know for sure that some letters don't match you could use "
Sear 123
var." If it is significantly different from
Sear 123, e.g. has a completely different
legend form or a variation in the devices you could write "
cf Sear 123".
cf., an abbreviation for the Latin word confer, means "compare" or "consult". That means whoever looks at the coin should realise it is somewhat like, but different from,
Sear 123.
Or you could also write "As of
Hadrian with
Pax" and not quote a
catalogue number at all. There's no obligation whatsoever to use
catalogue numbers in a coin description. Words will do just
fine. Anyone interested can spend 2 minutes looking through a book to find as close as match as you. And often no-one wants more than "As of
Hadrian with
Pax" because that's what they need to know.
Why collect by
catalogue numbers anyway. Not the owner of the
Medusa silver
denarius. He didn't care that it was an unidentifiable coin when he bid 6 times estimate, and presumably neither did
his underbidder! It's best to see a
catalogue as a route to other
types of knowledge: it may indicate a date within an emperors series, it may say something about
his titles, the odd varieties in spelling and devices may indicate something on the engravers mind or a practice or custom that is less usual on the coin series and thus worth noting (e.g. knocking off the final S on the
Plautia coin - not so common on coins but perhaps this was the vernacular). When I recently catalogued the anonymous bronzes of the
Roman Republic, it was in order to place each coin in its correct historic context in the battle against Hannibal, in order to say "that looks like a
military camp issue from
Apulia of about 210BC". It wasn't just because the coins badly needed numbering!
Catalogue numbers are ways to get into the minds of the ancients by discovering obscure or interesting information about the era, about people, about a coin
type. Use them when they do you
good service.
