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Constantine Antioch GLORIA

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SC:
I don't see what is so odd about the heads of the downturned spears on that first coin.  As I noted above I have the same phenomenon on many of my GE 2 standards coins: CI at Arelate, CI at Heraclea, CI at Nicomedia, CI at Antioch (RIC-86 off.B), CII at Arelate, CII at Rome, CII at Siscia, CII at Heraclea, CII at Nicomedia, CsII at Siscia, CsII at Heraclea, Cn at Heraclea, Cn at Antioch (RIC-89 off.H), and Delmatius at Siscia.  Many of which look exactly the same.

I don't think that the fibula of your Rupert is an eagle.  The fibula used on this type of bust is a known type that also appears on sculpture - though very few actual physical examples exist.  They are a complex type with many minor variations and sometimes cause engravers problems.  I suspect many engravers will never have seen the actual fibula but were working off of imagos. 

The fibula consists of a large central "gem", actually often a cameo, mounted on a round or square gold back, with several pendants that are made up of large pearls or other round/oval/teardrop shaped gems.  These pendants are sometimes rendered as large ovals like on yours and are sometimes shown played out side to side as on yours.  In their most "normal" manifestation they hang downwards.

SC

Lech Stępniewski:

--- Quote from: otlichnik on December 16, 2021, 06:12:39 pm ---I don't see what is so odd about the heads of the downturned spears on that first coin.

--- End quote ---

There are of course many varieties of these spearheads: big, small, single, double etc. There are also quite many coins of this type with no spear head at all. These spearheads are also sometimes placed low (near boot) or a little bit higher. But almost never higher than edge of the military dress - like in this case.

And as I said: this detail alone is not very suspicious. But there are several such details on this one coin.

SC:
Upon looking these (and mine) over I am not sure that the head of the spear is the strange bit as the length of the tunic.  You are right that the spear head ends rarely reach the tunic but most soldiers wear mini-skirt-like tunics while these guys have quite long ones.

Like you I see nothing that absolutely condemn this coin - just a lot of red flags.  Maybe a statistical outlier in terms of styles, maybe something else.

SC

Lech Stępniewski:

--- Quote from: otlichnik on December 18, 2021, 08:48:08 am ---Like you I see nothing that absolutely condemn this coin - just a lot of red flags.

--- End quote ---

Maybe similar red flags will appear somewhere in the future so I think that it is worth to remember them.

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