Curtis,
I cannot remember well - many years have passed - but I think Frank has seen them. This particular one perhaps not, but there was something else. I must try to ask when/if I see him again. I have a vague recollection he mentioned that Tardani liked to combine published
aureus dies in
his creations (as was done here) and make
denarii with them (at the time same dies were used for both). Also, I think the profile of the letters was unusual.
As to the rest, speculation for sure. The
Otho RIC 17 die is
rare and about a third of the known ones appear to be recut
Galba "PR" dies. If randomly chosen, the most likely candidate would have been an unaltered/altered
Otho die. To choose a
Galba reverse die and form a combination not known is odd already. It becomes more than odd when the
choice was a
Galba reverse die that
had been recut for use with
Otho in
Rome. To me this suggests intent.
Whether someone was prepared to pay a lot for such a thing or not, I have no idea and I do not know any refrences discussing that. It may well have been just something the forger chose for fun - "only I know this inside story"
type of thing. We will never know, of course.
Jyrki
