Moneta holds her
cornucopia either with its tip turned towards her body (Singig's coin) or with its tip turned away from her body (Frans' coin).
Unfortunately this difference is not pointed out in the
standard catalogues,
Cohen,
Strack,
RIC or
BMC.
Schmidt-Dick apparently noticed it, though without mentioning it in her text p. 78, because on her pl. 32 she illustrates
side by
side three
Moneta bronzes with her
type no. f1A/01, one with
cornucopia tip turned towards Moneta's body, the other two with
cornucopia tip turned away from her body.
A quick sampling of Hadrian's
type in
CoinArchives, from which I eliminated some but probably not all reappearances of the same coin:
Tip towards body: 7
sestertii, 3
dupondii.
Tip away from body: 6
sestertii, 1
medallion on oversize
flan and omitting S C, no
dupondii.
The Garonne
hoard contained 54 specimens of this
Moneta sestertius of
Hadrian, 19 of which are illustrated, all with
cornucopia tip turned towards body! Judging from the
CoinArchives sample this will be a fluke, and quite a few of the unillustrated pieces will have shown the other variety, tip tuned from body. The Garonne authors would doubtless have separated the two varieties for us if only the catalogues they consulted,
RIC and
Strack,
had pointed out the difference and given each variety its own
catalogue number!
