Dear Jan, Pekka, Altamura, Jochen, and Board,
Jan's friend is the owner of a rather handsome coin! Very nicely centered. I have to admit: I do like the neat, "printing press" look of certain
Tomis Roman provincials!
There is no
RPC reference for this
Tomis type yet because the European
side of
RPC VI (covering the period AD 218–238) has yet to be put online. I suspect it will be coming soon, but in the meantime, let's take a peek in
AMNG I/I:
https://archive.org/details/p2dieantikenmn01akaduoft/page/820/mode/2upOn pages 820 and 821, we are inundated with
Hygieia on a group of
four-assarion bronzes (denoted as such by the large
delta)! But let us stay calm; we can get through this! By simply noting the
zeta on our coin (in the emperor's
cognomen) as opposed to a
xi, we have already eliminated a lot of the possibilities. Again, the abbreviation for the title
metropolis (presumably intended to be in the nominative ΜΗΤΡΟΠΟΛΙϹ) is "ΜΗΤΡΟΠ" on the
reverse of our coin, which now leaves us with only three candidates. The emperor on two of them is depicted as "Br. m. L. P. M. r., Brust nach vorn" which means we are dealing with a
bust that is laureate, draped,
cuirassed, and seen from the front. That is our boy! And better yet, the
obverse legends for
AMNG I/I 8135 & 8136 match our coin. Now for the
reverse. The
delta on the first coin is interestingly a
part of the clockwise
reverse legend and is depicted upside down (I am guessing in the
exergue), which is certainly not the case on Jan's friend's coin. On that piece, it is in the left
field, which is exactly what "i. F. l." means in the description for no. 8136.
Do we have a match, then? Well, yes and no. On no. 8136, there is supposed to be a dot between "ΜΗΤΡΟΠ" and "ΠΟΝΤΟV" which I do not see on our coin, although perhaps it is there, but just obscured and/or weakly struck. If you want to be very picky, you can cite the
catalog reference as
AMNG I/I 8136
var. (no dot)!
As for
rarity, I think
AMNG makes it very clear that the hygiene-minded ancient inhabitants of
Tomis, if they were
still around today and attending a concert for Greek deities, would certainly be pumping their glow sticks for
Hygieia. One could argue that this or that minor variety of the
Hygieia type for
Severus Alexander is quite
rare, and maybe some are (including #8136 with only one coin cited by
AMNG), but mostly in the
academic sense only. Value
wise, we have not arrived yet at the "
Lincoln cent stage" where very minute variations in detail are going to translate into significant premiums. To sum it up neatly, the
Tomis coin under study is of a very common
reverse type for a common emperor, but is in somewhat uncommonly
good condition. All around, it is a great coin to have in one's
collection!
I
hope that helps! For the records, the two
BnF coins that Altamura kindly linked could be additional specimens of
AMNG I/I 8136 and
may even be die-identical to Jan's friend's coin (in different die states).
Best regards,
Mark Fox
Michigan
