Quote:
Yeah I was a bit surprised that such an nice ancient coin was only $45...I can only assume there isn't a high enough demand for these right now.
They're cheap not because of peculiarly low demand, but peculiarly high supply. Silver antoninianus coins of this period - Gordian III, the two Philips and Trajan Decius - are very common, even in high grade. I assume the cause of this is a combination of high mintage and high survival rate (i.e. many more coins than usual ended up getting buried in the ground and forgotten).
Portraiture of the period was towards the end of the "realistic" phase of Roman coinage. You could still have used this coin to pick the emperor out from a crowd, unlike the rather more cartoonish portraits of emperors of succeeding centuries. But the quality of the portrait contrasts sharply with the chunky, almost cuneiform-like lettering around it and the even worse artwork and lettering on the reverse. Apparently, the obverse dies were carved by the master moneyer, with the reverses prepared by an apprentice.
Speaking of the reverse, if you weren't sure of the exact type, this one is PANNONIAE; the two figures are personifications of the two Pannonian provinces.
Here's the Wildwinds page for the type.
Pannonia, correlating roughly with modern-day western Hungary and Slovenia, was the home province of Trajan Decius; it was the Pannonian legions that Decius was in command of before his acclamation and it was they that forced him to become emperor, apparently against his will and better judgement.
Don't say "infinitely" when you mean "very"; otherwise, you'll have no word left when you want to talk about something really infinite. - C. S. Lewis
Posted 04/12/2011 02:09 am
