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Author Topic: Caracalla Denarius from an uncertain eastern mint  (Read 442 times)

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Offline Aeneas

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Caracalla Denarius from an uncertain eastern mint
« on: November 28, 2022, 03:57:59 pm »
Dear Friends

A few days ago, this denarius (2.78g) was auctioned from a respected auction house for a high price. It is attributed to an uncertain Eastern mint, probably dating to AD 202. While the portrait looks more like from the mint of Rome to me, I agree that the letters are  irregular and match better the Eastern style. I was wondering if this could not be an ancient forgery rather than a new, otherwise undocumented mint with an unknown reverse legend for Caracalla. Any thoughts?

Many thanks

David

Offline curtislclay

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Re: Caracalla Denarius from an uncertain eastern mint
« Reply #1 on: November 30, 2022, 10:34:54 am »
How do you read the last letter in the rev. legend?
Curtis Clay

Offline Aeneas

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Re: Caracalla Denarius from an uncertain eastern mint
« Reply #2 on: November 30, 2022, 10:53:46 am »
Hi Curtis

The auction house reads the reverse legend as PACI AVGO, this is also what I can read based on the picture.

Kind regards, David

Offline curtislclay

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Re: Caracalla Denarius from an uncertain eastern mint
« Reply #3 on: November 30, 2022, 06:38:07 pm »
Stylistically, I think it can't be either mint of Rome or new-style Eastern mint, which seems to leave two possibilities: a short-lived subsidiary mint of 200 (most official coins with obv. legend  ANTONINVS AVGVSTVS were struck in that year) or an ancient imitation.

The portrait looks convincingly ancient. On the other hand AVGO on an official coin seems unlikely, and Pax holding Fortuna's rudder instead of her own branch is also odd.
Curtis Clay

Offline Ron C2

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Re: Caracalla Denarius from an uncertain eastern mint
« Reply #4 on: November 30, 2022, 08:57:57 pm »
to me, the reverse looks unlikely to be official for all the reasons Curtis mentioned.  The coin is also unusually "frosty" for a Caracalla denarius.  this much selective phase corrosion would be unusual in a denarius from that timeframe unless the silver content were exceedingly low.  This looks more like a post-gordian flan to me in terms of corrosion, making me suspect ancient forgery on a sub-standard flan of low silver purity. 
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Offline timka

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Re: Caracalla Denarius from an uncertain eastern mint
« Reply #5 on: December 01, 2022, 06:09:29 am »
... If Eastern mints used to make legend  errors on every second coin for Septimius Severus, and on almost every coin of Pescennius Niger, why we should we  be alarmed with an error on a suspected Eastern- mint denarius of Caracalla? Surface, fabric, appearance look very Eastern. Obverse style is rather Roman...

I believe this whole topic needs a bit more time and much more material to be accumulated. So that someone with enough recorded specimens will be able to conclude what is imitation and what is Eastern mint for Caracalla. Though it can be a very silm line between small Eastern mint and imitation production.

Below you can see a coin that is also in question.

Offline maridvnvm

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Re: Caracalla Denarius from an uncertain eastern mint
« Reply #6 on: December 01, 2022, 06:37:45 am »
Your argument falls down if you look at the context around what is happening at the mint at the time.

Pescennius Niger was a usurper who had stood up a regional mint likely with staff who were not fully literate in Latin.

The early eastern issues of Septimius Severus also had similar issues but by the time the mint had been made a branch mint to the Rome mint the number of such errors are very much the exception rather than the rule. The coins of Caracalla are contemporary with these and the occurrence of such errors on the standard eastern issues from this mint really is minimal.

These examples are so far from the normal output of the mint that they can ONLY be explained as being imitative rather than errored examples from an official mint.

That is my opinion.

Offline Aeneas

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Re: Caracalla Denarius from an uncertain eastern mint
« Reply #7 on: December 06, 2022, 04:10:43 pm »
Many thanks to all of you for your replies. The argument that Maridvnvm makes is quite compelling and is in line with my first thought about this coin. I was thinking about bidding on that coin but the price for the denarius went far beyond what I was willing to pay for it. It comforts me a little to know, that at least some of you agree that it is probably not an official issue.

Greetings, David

 

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