This coin came in a group of 3 along with a nice barbarous coin of Tetricus and a neat coin of Maximian. No particularly good deal here - £15/$20 for the group - but I have a soft spot for interesting coins of the Britannic emperors and my budget was looking okay (though the Republican denarius and the Aurelius sestertius I bought not long afterwards saw to that).
This coin has a totally blundered reverse; the figure is Pax, but the legend is illegible, with Vs and Λs, but the X survives in the correct place (this is a common feature of barbarous coins, even decades onwards; barbarous minims can be found with completely abstracted figures with a cross in the left field, which is the end point of the barbarisation of PAX AVG coins before they become totally unidentifiable as Pax).
More interesting is the obverse. The bust is very similar to the earliest issues of the Rotomagus mint and the legend is well cut. Clearly, this celator was literate. The legend reads IMP C CARAVSIVS.
Carausius, Irregular Antoninianus, 2.68g, AE19
IMP C CARAVSIVS, radiate, cuirassed bust right
ΛVX V U, Pax standing left, branch in either hand.
I believe this coin will benefit from further cleaning.
And a bonus, the Tetricus, which is really nice, 1.64g, AE16, anepigraphic, reverse type unclear:
Posted 04/13/2019 05:19 am
