Numism > Reading For the Advanced Ancient Coin Collector
RIC VI Cyzicus 100
Lech Stępniewski:
I just found Licinius' coin which looks like RIC VI Cyzicus 100 but the obverse legend is 1b (IMP C VAL LICIN...) not 1a (VAL LICINNIANVS...) as RIC claims. Is it a new variation or another error in RIC?
Lech Stępniewski:
Pic from auction.
curtislclay:
On the basis of the two specimens we have in hand, and the parallel of the legends for Maximinus II and Constantine, I think we can be pretty sure that 1a is a misprint for 1b at RIC 100.
Unfortunately this issue cannot really be located in the Gerin catalogue, nor in Cohen. It's also hard to find photos of such ordinary, inexpensive late Roman bronzes; none in Glasgow or Mazzini catalogues or Berk photofile, for instance.
Again I deplore the abysmal underillustration of the early RIC volumes. If the editors had undertaken to illustrate one of each major variety, as in RIC X, yes, the books would be even bulkier and more expensive than they are, but we would be having a lot fewer of these continually recurring discussions of possible errors, diadem forms, rev. type details, and so on!
bpmurphy:
I'm not convinced it's a misprint. There's an example of this issue recorded in Hunter pg. 136, 148 with the obverse legend recorded as VAL LICINNIANVS LICINNIVS P F AVG (or RIC legend 1a), struck in officina Delta. Sadly though it's not illustrated either, but it is recorded as such. It's also recorded this way in the Gerrin catalog on pg. 137, 13. It's also recorded in Maurice this way. I can see RIC copying Gerrin and or Maurice, but I have trouble seeing Anne Robertson making the same mistake when she had the coin in hand.
Barry Murphy
curtislclay:
Gerin Cat., p. 137, no. 13 has mintmark MKV not SMK and eagle not altar in rev. type. So it is not RIC 100, but RIC 83, which indeed has obv. legend 1a.
So Hunter 148 as reported by Miss Robertson, plus Maurice according to Barry, which I do not own, so far support 1a at RIC 100, while in favor of 1b we have Lech's and the Wildwinds coin, plus the parallel of Max. II and Constantine.
I still prefer the evidence I can see myself, and do not think it impossible that Miss R. and M. are wrong!
Once more: wouldn't it be useful if RIC VI had illustrated a specimen of Cyzicus 100?
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