Decius not in ric (?)

[Stefano S]

Hi all,

I wanted to show you a coin that I won at auction a few days ago. Clearly there are traces of overstriking, in particular on a denarius of Septimius Severus, but what intrigued me most is the legend of the reverse. The iconography is that of an adventus, however you can clearly see an AVGG to the right of the horse, however the inscription should have only one G. my hypothesis is that they may have used a reverse of Philip the Arab, or, more poetic, was coined in the short period in which Herennius Etruscus became Augustus. What do you think?

[Dominic T]

Interesting. Can you decipher the rest of the legend on the reverse side ?
DT

[Stefano S]

The previous coin trace would be [SEVER]US AVG IMP XI PAR[T]. Instead the legend of Decius [ADVE]NT[VS] AVGG

[Curtis JJ]

Interesting coin. It has a bit of the look of the Antioch mint reverses doesn't it? (Which struck ADVENTVS for multiple of the Philippi and Decii.) It would be quite interesting if one of the reverse dies for the former dynasty were paired with the latter. (As opposed to an engraving error or unofficial issue of some kind.)

If so, it would be great to find the die. (No matter what it is, I guess, that would be good.)

Bland's study of the Philip Antoniniani is a type study, right? Not a die-catalog? Maybe there were too many dies for anyone to have actually cataloged them?

[Stefano S]

Hi Curtis,

I hadn't considered the reverse similar to those of Antioch, especially because the portrait has a flavor of those of Rome. I did a search among Philippus' reverses but none seem to resemble this one. The only one whose horse seems to resemble the most is the one I send as an attachment. I took a look at Dr. Bland's study but yes, it seems to be a type study, non a die-catalog.