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Author Topic: Third century crisis - rome mint officina and RIC's "milan" - questions  (Read 680 times)

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Offline Ron C2

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I'm hoping someone can help me out.  I know RIC IVc was published in the 1940's and scholarly thinking has likely matured since then.  In RIC, for emperors like Trebonianus Gallus, they list issues from a Milan Mint.  I recently purchased an example from CNG, and they indicated the coin was not minted in Milan, but rather is an example of Rome's 4th officina.

The RIC references don't do much to explain why CNG attributed the coin to Rome while acknowledging that RIC attributes it to Milan

Here's the coin in question:

https://www.forumancientcoins.com/gallery/displayimage.php?pid=171489

I have a few other coins from dealers that are also authentication and attribution services, and they specify the Rome mint officina and issue for coins in this time frame (Trajan Decius, Herennius Etruscus, etc.).  I'm not sure where they are getting the information from, as RIC is not so specific.

Is there later reference material that makes sense of these attribution differences or extra precisions?
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Offline mauseus

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Re: Third century crisis - rome mint officina and RIC's "milan" - questions
« Reply #1 on: August 04, 2021, 03:29:10 am »
Hi,
RIC 4, is older, in many ways, than the 1949 publication date. In the preface it is noted that it was largely completed in the early 1940s but delayed by the war and the authors admit it was hard to update.

The question you ask of Milan/Rome is easily dealt with. The initial attribution to a mint other than Rome was made because of the unusual IMP C C VIB......  for Trebonnianus Gallus etc but also included  Trajan Decius and family in the broader attribution that did not fit the Rome pattern of coins so Milan was suggested as the centre of production. Subsequent work has shown that there are known hybrids with confirmed Rome mint types and the chances of a cross mint hybrid occurring is much less likely than a single mint of origin.

The original paper on this is K Elks, Reattribution of the Milan Coins of Trajan Decius to the Rome Mint, in Numismatic Chronicle 1972 pp 111-115. There is also Robert Carson's paper, Mints in the Third Century, in the festschrift for Humphrey Sutherland, Scripta Nummaria Romania, 1978, pp 65-74.

Regards,

Mauseus

Offline Ron C2

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Re: Third century crisis - rome mint officina and RIC's "milan" - questions
« Reply #2 on: August 04, 2021, 07:18:42 am »
Thanks Mauseus, given that tidbit, were the same references used to narrow down the officinal and sometimes the issue?
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Offline mauseus

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Re: Third century crisis - rome mint officina and RIC's "milan" - questions
« Reply #3 on: August 04, 2021, 08:24:45 am »
Hi,
Officina is difficult to assign as they are unmarked, save to say that six officina were identified. There is also a little on issue sequence, particularly in the Elks paper but some also in the Carson. If I had the time I would sit down to try and pull it together as I would find it useful too.

Mauseus

Offline Ron C2

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Re: Third century crisis - rome mint officina and RIC's "milan" - questions
« Reply #4 on: August 04, 2021, 08:47:51 am »
Do you have a digital copy of Elks?
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Offline Pekka K

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Offline Ron C2

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Re: Third century crisis - rome mint officina and RIC's "milan" - questions
« Reply #6 on: August 04, 2021, 10:26:15 am »
Thanks Pekka!!
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Offline mauseus

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Re: Third century crisis - rome mint officina and RIC's "milan" - questions
« Reply #7 on: August 04, 2021, 11:44:27 am »
Hi Ron,

While you're in JSTOR it may be worth pulling out Harold Mattingly's 1946 paper from Numismatic Chronicle, The Reigns of Trebonnianus Gallus, and Volusian and of Aemilian, pp36-46. He mentions it in RIC as adjusting the order of issues of Trebonianus Gallus that he couldn't incorporate in the main text of RIC. For example RIC issue 2 comes after RIC issue 3.

https://www.jstor.org/stable/42661251?refreqid=excelsior%3Af031590e86539d69f2d2d46275f3b169

Regards,

Mauseus

Offline curtislclay

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Re: Third century crisis - rome mint officina and RIC's "milan" - questions
« Reply #8 on: August 04, 2021, 07:07:04 pm »
I think these numerations of issues and officinae may go back to the lists of type sequences for various reigns published by CGB in Paris in their "Rome" series of fixed price lists over the years c. 2000-2010. For example,

Rome IX, 2001, Trajan Decius and Family

Rome X, 2001, Aurelian

Rome XIV, 2003, Tacitus and Florian

Rome V, 1999, Probus

Rome XV, 2004, Gallic Empire

Rome XIII, 2002, Claudius II and Quintillus

Useful in many ways, I think, but assigning officina numbers to the many types which were not marked with such numbers by the mint itself is for the most part pure speculation, in my opinion, which pretends access to knowledge that we don't in fact have and are very unlikely ever to acquire.
Curtis Clay

Offline Ron C2

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Re: Third century crisis - rome mint officina and RIC's "milan" - questions
« Reply #9 on: August 04, 2021, 08:47:17 pm »
I think these numerations of issues and officinae may go back to the lists of type sequences for various reigns published by CGB in Paris in their "Rome" series of fixed price lists over the years c. 2000-2010. For example,

Rome IX, 2001, Trajan Decius and Family

Rome X, 2001, Aurelian

Rome XIV, 2003, Tacitus and Florian

Rome V, 1999, Probus

Rome XV, 2004, Gallic Empire

Rome XIII, 2002, Claudius II and Quintillus

Useful in many ways, I think, but assigning officina numbers to the many types which were not marked with such numbers by the mint itself is for the most part pure speculation, in my opinion, which pretends access to knowledge that we don't in fact have and are very unlikely ever to acquire.

Curtis - I share your suspicion.  I've now read the Elks piece, which I think lays to rest any notion of a Milan mint under Trebonianus.  That said, I've yet to read anything convincing that the attribution services pinning down an officina on these coins is anything more than informed speculation.  But I'm certainly open to the idea if there are better supported arguments out there.

At this point, I'm leaning toward shortening my attirbutions of these coins to the mint, dropping the officina and issue info CNG so kindly provided as though it were established fact.
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