A 'common' Maesa bronze; does it exist?

[Diederik]

As a young man I embarked on collecting Roman coins, with the idea of acquiring all denominations of every emperor/empress. That still is the core of my collection.
However, some coins never made their appearance in the trays, simply because they were never available in reasonable quality or price. One of those was an 'as' of Julia Maesa. I recently found one at a good price and fully identifiable. It is RIC 411, of which I have been able to find two specimen on line - one sold as a dupondius here at Forum and one sold at NAC at a whopping $ 1700. Mattingly, Sydenham and Sutherland however, probably based their rarity rate at 'common', on the basis of Cohen's prices.
I think since then a lot has changed: Maesa bronzes are extremely rare as compared to the huge quantity of silver available.

IVLIA MAESA AVG around her draped bust with her hair in a bun at the back of her head/
FECVNDITAS AVGVS[TAE] around a seated Fecunditas extending her hand to a child standing before her and holding cornucopiae; SC in the exergue. 10,0 gram 24 mms.


Frans

[Pekka K]

My RIC 415 Maesa As purchased year 1986 in London
for under 10 £.

Pekka K

[Diederik]

I was happy to pay that three times...
They are both decent gap fillers


Frans

[curtislclay]

Like the middle bronzes of Elagabalus' reign in general, middle bronzes of Maesa are scarce to rare, but generally not very rare.

My restricted collection of plaster casts, covering only 5-6 major museums and coins seen in trade or private collections, includes the following types:

IVNO S C, 3 spec., all from same die pair. That is a very rare type!

FECVNDITAS AVGVSTAE S C, 9 spec., from the same obv. die as the Juno type and two others. Frans' coin appears to be from the same die pair as a specimen in the collection of an old friend of mine in New York City.

SAECVLI FELICITAS S C, 9 spec., 3 obv. dies.

PVDICITIA S C, 17 spec., 3 obv. dies.

PIETAS AVG S C, 12 spec., 4 obv. dies. Pekka's coin is from a known obv. die, the rev. die appears to be new to my casts.

Maesa's sestertii are apparently about three times as common: I have casts from 33 different obv. dies, compared to a total of 13 middle bronze obv. dies.

[Diederik]

The original question:

A 'common' Maesa bronze; does it exist?

has now sufficiently been answered, thanks to Curtis! Though not every coin is as rare, the whole of Maesa's bronze coinage is rare as compared to e.g. Marcus Aurelius.
Wish you the best for 2014!


Frans