Xtremely rare Pius as as caesar

[Diederik]

Today I could conclude a L... auction with a winning bid on one of the ugliest coins I have ever bought. It is RIC (Hadrian) 1089 (as or dupondius) which was taken up in the catalog as it was described by Cohen (131)
IMP T AELIVS CAE-SAR ANTONINVS, bare head right //   TRIB POT COS    CONCORD in exergue, S - C in fields. Concordia sitting left holding patera, leaning on chair with left arm;  cornucopiae under the chair. This description differs slightly from Mattingly's, but this is how I see it. Of the corresponding sestertius there also exist some variants. I will attach a picture of my specimen.

Frans

[curtislclay]

Cohen may have been the first cataloguer to publish this dupondius, in vol. II of his first edition (1859), no. 510 = vol. II of his second ed. (1882), no. 132. Cohen cited no source for the coin; presumably he saw it in a private collection or maybe a dealer's stock.

No actual specimen of this middle bronze was known to Strack, who included it on Cohen's authority alone, along with the corresponding sestertius, under no. 898 in both his Hadrian volume (1933) and his Antoninus Pius volume (1937).

In 1937, however, the coin dealer and collector Paul Tinchant donated an actual specimen of this dupondius to the BM, whose curators published it in the revised edition of BMC III (1976), no. 1948A, and have more recently placed an image of it online, which I reproduce below. Note that Concordia places her left elbow on a cornucopia which rests on her throne behind her.

A second middle bronze rev. die of the same variety (l. elbow on cornucopia) is known to me from three specimens in my collection, one in decent quality, about equal to the BM's, but the other two worn and/or damaged. Three minor differences between this die and the BM's: the circular rev. legend is split TRIB - POT COS rather than TRIB POT - CO - S; Concordia's throne has a seat cover, one edge of which hangs down from the side of the seat; and there is a small flower on the strut between the two visible legs of the throne.

Frans' new specimen, though worn, has the merit of introducing not only a new, third, rev. die, but a new variety of the type: the cornucopia has been moved from resting on Concordia's seat to a position below the throne. Apparently Concordia rests her l. elbow on an arm rest; I don't see any trace of the statuette of Spes on a column on which C. rests her elbow in another version of the same type, shown by Frans' sestertius above.

These five named CONCORD seated dupondii seem to come from four different obv. dies; the only obv. die link I observe is between two of my specimens, all three of which, as mentioned, also share the same rev. die.

[Diederik]

Curtis, thank you so much for this elaborate answer. From the number of known specimens and the various varieties, we must but conclude that many more coins should be there, but are not yet found and/or published. This one, for example was misattributed as 'Concordia mit Standarten' , which is a much commoner type (RIC 1086). At least one other collector saw what it was and because of his bid, I had to pay considerably more than just a few Dollars for a very worn coin.

Frans