Walter,
Not many people appear to have counted the rays, though I agree with you that such details can be interesting.
Mattingly apparently noted the variation, for otherwise he would not have bothered to illustrate two BM specimens of this
type, one with a five-rayed and the other with an eight-rayed
star,
BMC pl. 55.13-14, though
his text doesn't point out the difference or explain why he illustrated two examples.
B.A.
Seaby (
RSC)
had sharp eyes, so spotted what
Mattingly had left out, and accordingly commented, "the rays of the
star...vary from five to eight." That observation probably just depended on the
BMC plates, but at least he looked and noticed the difference!
At some point I too
had penciled into my copy of
BMC: pl. 55.13 Five-pointed
star, pl. 55.14 Eight-pointed
star.
But I have probably never before noticed an eleven-pointed
star, or I would have written that variety too into my
BMC!
I found no ray counts in several of the other
standard catalogues: the new
RIC,
Cohen,
Strack, Melville
Jones,
Stevenson.