Hi all
Recently i managed to acquire an extremely
rare coin of the usurper
Maximus of
Hispania, see the picture below.
The
auction company that sold it didn't identify it as such, however i'm 99% sure of the
identification, specifically as
RIC 1604 (
AE3 coin)
The main giveaway was the
mintmark SMBA on the
reverse, as this
mint was only used under
Maximus. Also the bearded portret matches that of the usurper, even though most of this name is off
flan.
When i was researching this usurper i read there are very few surviving coins, with estimates ranging from ~20 coins (P.
Grierson), ~30 coins (Ira and Larry Goldberg
auctions) to ~50 coins (
Forum Ancient Coins).
This made me curious, so i searched the internet for all individual specimens which have been published online, either in
auctions,
collections or otherwise.
The result is the overview shown below, and i've managed to identify 51 individual
Maximus coins as of yet, from which 44 are
siliqua (
RIC 1601), 4 are maioriana (
RIC 1602/03) and 3 are
AE3 (
RIC 1604), including my own specimen. With the siliquae it was possible to match some coins which where struck with the same
obverse dies, these are encircled in
red.
However, i'm pretty sure there must be more specimens available, for instance those of
auctions from before the internet era. Or just from private
collections. Also, i don't own
RIC X, and maybe there are some additional specimens in there.
So my question to you is: are there any missing specimens to this overview? Especially the bronzes have very few examples. If so, please post below. Then we can hopefully question once and for all how many coins of
Maximus of
Hispania have survived till today!
gr Luuk
