Macrinus Nikopolis - help

[Numerianus]

Could you, please, give comments on this coin?

[slokind]

Yours is a splendid strike of a wonderful die.  May I add, it is beautiuflly photographed.  I have a true alternate die pair, of which I attach a scan.  Then I'll look it up in Pick, then hunt for that obverse, which I'm sure occurs with other reverses.
07 02 03 AE 26.  Nicopolis ad Istrum.  Issued by Longinus.  Macrinus, laureate, bust in armor and cloak to r.  AVT K M OPE[L SEV]    MAKRINOS (here, as on Pick's example, one cannot tell whether there are traces of an eta before the mu).  Rev., Dionysos, wearing boots, stg. l., with knurled, knobbed, and beribboned thyrsos and, in his r. hand, grapes.  VP STA LONGINO[V NI]KOPOLITO[N  PROS and in exergue IS].  Pick, AMNG I, 1, p. 449, no. 1755.  For the rev., cf. Varbanov I, 2717.

[slokind]

I have a rough and scarred specimen with your obv. die with a variant river god reverse (see attached).  I do not have your Dionysos, only my variant of it.
Pick's no. 1755 is the listing for your coin (there is no other), but the obverse there seems to be different: your obv. die (see mine with the river reverse) has the eta of SEVE at right of the head preceding MAKRINOS.  Likewise, my obv. die, above, is not that of 1755, having all of SEVE at right preceding MAKRINOS (other specimens show it).  Your Dionysos die is surely Pick 1755, because it is very uncommon to have that spaced O C in the exergue all alone.  That is decisive for the list number.
These coins would drive Constantinian collectors crazy; they interchanged obverse dies quite commonly, yet did not use so many dies as the late coinage.  Pick 1756, an Asklepios that I do not have, also has the reverse exergue with O C, by the way, but the obv. listed with it is a Head.
The rarer die, yours, is not that which Pick calls 'with a cloak'; mine is the one with a paludamentum over armor.
My rough specimen, below, may interest you because I think that it has (had) a gorgoneion on the breastplate, which may be worn away on yours.
P.S. Yours is precisely Varbanov I, no. 2717, which sold in CNG 50, June 1999, apparently for $80, since that is the dollar value Varbanov gives.
15 01 02 AE 26 Nicopolis ad Istrum  Macrinus, laureate, cuirassed bust.  AVT K M OPPEL(?) SEV    E MAKRINOS.  Rev. Unbearded river god, reclining to l. on the ground, grasping tree with his r. and resting his l. forearm on flowing vase, with water conventionally represented.  VP STA LONGINO[V]     [NIKOPOLI]TON PROS IST.  Pick 1763, or very close (slight variations in legends).
The reverse legend on this river god is continuous, so cannot be the same die as the reverse of Pick 1763, and the obverse legend of 1763 has SEV HROC spelled out.
Pat L.

[Numerianus]

Many thanks for such an intensive comment!
Here is the reference: Diadumenian with Dionysos reverse
http://www.coinarchives.com/a/lotviewer.php?LotID=75027&AucID=79&Lot=994

[slokind]

Not to burden you with complexities, just to thank you for calling my attention to the one in CoinArchives, Peus 378, no. 994, because this is yet another Dionysos reverse, and, of course, I'm not surprised.  But this led to my discovering that one of the Asklepios reverses for Diadumenian is the same die, evidently ( I C in exergue) as Pick 1756.  On the other hand, an Asklepios reverse with the same lovely obverse as the Peus example has an empty exergue, just as the Peus Dionysos has.
Do not worry when dealers' cataloguers are inexact about Pick references.  You may ask, why not assume that Pick's own cross reference at no. 1850 is the one that is inexact?  In the age when one quire of a book would already be printed, or at least in stereotype, while the author was finishing the next, it would be more understandable, too, but not characteristic of Pick.  Pat L.