One of my main collecting areas is the eastern mint denarii of Septimius Severus. I generally only focus on the early issues of the mint before it became a branch mint of Rome. The later issues from Laodicea follow types from Rome and can only be differentiated by the style of the engraving. It took me some time to learn how to differentiate between Rome and Laodicea easily, studying many 100s of examples that were confirmed for either mint and comparing one to the other. I learned quickly that I could not necessarily rely on dealer identification of the mint as the quite often got this wrong.
During this learning process I gathered a collection together of the readily availably types and found that there were some that seemed to evade me. Nowadays I only gather examples that have evaded me in the past or I think are genuinely scarce in the marketplace.
That brings me to this most recent purchase.
Septimius Severus denarius
Obv:- L SEPT SEV AVG IMP XI PART MAX, laureate head right
Rev:- IOVI CONSERVATORI Jupiter seated to left on throne with a back, holding Victory and long scepter
Minted in Laodicea-ad-Mare. A.D. 199-202
Reference:- RIC 504a. BMCRE Pg. 286 •. Both citing L A Lawrence ESQ., F.R.C.S. collection
Weight 3.13g. 18.72mm. 180 degrees
The L A Lawrence died in 1949 and collection was sold off by Glendening's across 7 auctions in 1950 and 1951. His denarii of Septimius Severus were sold in un-illustrated lots. The destination of his example of RIC 504a is unknown. It doesn't appear to have been purchased by the BM, who were given first refusal on any coins from his collection. The BM database contains 5 examples from Rome but none from Laodicea.
I have discussed the coin with Curtis Clay and he is unaware of the location of the Lawrence example and is only aware of one example other than mine, which is a double die match to mine and is in his own collection. He even, almost jokingly, speculated that either of our examples could be the Lawrence coin.
Posted 12/15/2022 06:44 am
