Well, 'tooled' coins ordinarily recut effaced legends from an EF specimen or
Cohen, if he happens to illustrate the coin. This goes a little farther than mere tooling. The
flan, of course, is
ancient metal, but there is no source for an ignorant and insouciant person to have worked from, since Septimius's
Herakles here is the same
type but a different die, and the perpetrator probably did not know that coin, either. The
head of
Herakles needn't be burly; for
Caracalla, it is a youthful
Herakles.
When you consider that the sole listed specimen is
STILL just "St Petersburg", and
still is only cited by
Varbanov Engl. from
Pick, and that, even
had he known it the person who eliminated the present coin from the scholarly record by what he did could have gotten no
help from my 'ghost' specimen, and that he or she (to be 'correct')
had no access to a computer to find one of the well preserved specimens of the
obverse or to find one of the lists of governors of
Moesia Inferior, and apparently hardly knew the
Greek alphabet, let alone the leter forms for this time and place, to which one must add no knowledge of human anatomy, not even that of a Late
Genius Pop, I must agree that 'tooling' is the wrong word. The malefactor in this case lacked even the motive of 'improving' on something. And the seller lacked any gumption whatsoever. He didn't say anything but 'unidentified', even though he
had it in hand and may himself have been the 'conservator'.
Comparison with my faintest ghost, all I've been able to find (assuming even that 'St Petersburg', after everything that has passed in more than a century, could find theirs) does show that one less ghostly than mine though probably corroded has been irrevocably destroyed.
Pick could not be sure even whether the
reverse die was the same or not for Septimius and
Caracalla. The
obverse die for
Caracalla is the same as that for
Pick 1518,
his Apollo Sauroktonos (variant with twig), for which see Jochen's here or the one in
CoinArchives.
My
poor specimens (
poor but not abused):
• 23 06 05 Æ25 9.53g
axis 6:30h
Nicopolis ad Istrum. Issued by Tertullus.
Caracalla, laureate, draped
bust to r. AV. K. M. AV[R] A[NTONEI]NOS .
Rev. Herakles stg. to r. (if beardless, then 'young' as
Pick says), in
his lowered r. hand
his club resting on the groundline; in
his outstretched l. hand
his bow; over the l. forearm the
lion skin. VPA OOV [TERTVLLOV]
NIKOPOLI PROS I (continuous).
Pick knew one specimen in St. Petersburg. He says, whether it is
AVR or AVRH is uncertain,
still more so on mine, and "The
rev. is very similar to or perhaps the same as that of
Severus, above no. 1276". Just so, but I think they were in either case issued as a pair.
Varbanov I, 2446, cites only
AMNG I, 1, which means the Petersburg coin=Engl.3106. I heightened contrast for legibility.
• 29 07 02 AE 26
Nicopolis ad Istrum Tertullus
Septimius Severus, laureate
head to r. AV KAI SEVEROS P.
Rev., Bearded
Herakles stg. to r., leaning on club in
his r., holding bow in
his l. VP OOVINI TERTVLLOV
NIKOPOL[--- (there seems to be an O in the
exergue).
AMNG I, 1, p. 360, no. 1276, describing the Bucarest example, which clearly showed that the traces over
his l. forearm are the
lion skin, though the
legend is less
complete; the present example, however, not only preserves the
obv. legend but is certainly a different die, since it is a
head, not a
bust with armor and cloak. (=Varb. Engl. 2553, at least for the
reverse; he cites only WW). The
obv. die in
Varbanov is a
Bust rather than a
Head. PL
The letters that make sense on the 'mess' align with surviving letters on mine.And I add
obverse in at least VF condition from
Pick 1518.
Fake Coins and Notorious Fake Sellers
