By Dr. Steve Benner for CoinWeek …..
This article is more personal than my previous pieces and revolves around a single coin purchased on eBay.
Let me mention right off that I do not recommend buying coins on eBay because many of them are fakes or scams. However, I occasionally buy coins there if I know the dealer (some well-known dealers sell coins there, but not so much anymore) or if the type of coin is not frequently faked. I readily admit that I purchased fake coins on eBay in the “distant past”, when both the internet and I were young, but I’m too cautious now to make that mistake. Plus, 50 years of collecting ancient coins have given me a good eye for spotting fakes.
Okay, back to the coin. When I saw the coin, I immediately thought it was fake, albeit a fascinating one (Figure 1). It was listed as a dupondius of Carinus (Caesar from 282-283 and Augustus from 283-285 CE) but it was obviously not a dupondius (dupondii from that time have a radiate head on the obverse, a spiky crown with rays coming out of it like the Statue of Liberty), so my initial guess was that it might be a bronze as. The coin has a diameter of 25 to 29 mm and weighs 14.15 g. The laureate head of Carinus facing right and the inscription M AVR CARINUS NOB CAES is on the obverse, and the reverse has Victory advancing left with a wreath, standing on a globe, and the inscription VICTORIA AVG.
I’m an avid collector of third-century imperial bronzes (see my previous CoinWeek article on the Carian dynasty), so I am very familiar with the imperial coinage of the period. The first thing to do with a new Roman coin is to find it in the standard numismatic reference The Roman Imperial Coinage (1923), in this case under Carinus. I found the legends and the type listed but nothing like the large bronze coin I had in my hand. This meant I needed a much more extensive review of my sources.
The vast majority of surviving coins of Carinus as Caesar (October 282 to March 283) are antoniniani – debased radiate coins with a trace of silver that were over-valued at two denarii. The bronze sestertius was one-fourth of a denarius; the bronze dupondius was one-eighth; and the humble copper as was one-sixteenth. Volume III of David Sear’s masterful Roman Coins and Their Values (2005) lists only two types in bronze for Carinus as Caesar: one with a PAX AVGVSTORVM reverse, and the other with a PRINCIPI IVVENT reverse.
Sear writes:
“This type and the next exist in a range of sizes and weights and it is possible that some of the smaller and lighter specimens may represent a separate denomination – a reduced as or semis. Alternatively, there may have been a reduction in the weight standard of the sestertius during the course of the issue.”
There are several things to check when one first starts looking into an unknown coin: weight, size, style, legends, etc. The weight gave me pause because I didn’t know of any bronze coins from that period that weighed 14 grams, which is high for an as (also called a reduced sestertius) that usually weighs around seven grams, and low for a medallion usually above 25 grams. But I’ll come back to this. Moving on to the legend and type, the obverse and reverse legend are common for Carinus, and I found a gold aureus with the same legends and type (Figure 2). The obverse legend does not have IMP at its start, so it was minted when he was still Caesar. The reverse is a wingless Victoria or “Victory” holding a victor’s wreath and standing on a globe. It’s unusual for Victory not to have wings, and she seems to be holding a long straight pole with some body armor attached to it; this is called a “Trophy of arms” and is a common attribute of Victoria. As one can see, the style is similar to the mystery coin. The portraits are almost identical, including the laurel and cuirass (note the polka dot nature of the beards); this is true of the reverse as well. It seems one was modeled on the other – except, of course, for the size difference.
CAES, laureate, draped and cuirassed bust right / VICTORIA AVG, Victory standing left on
globe, holding wreath and palm, 19mm, 4.83 g., RIC 153.
Having established that the legend and style are acceptable, the next thing is to determine whether or not it is fake. There are many ways to produce fakes, but since I don’t plan to make this an article on fakes, I’ll just cover my process.
First, I worry that it may be a cast coin, which means that a cast of the coin was made in clay or similar material, and then molten metal was poured into said cast. This may be the most common type of fake. Problems with cast coinage include:
- Details that lack definition
- A sprue or bump of metal on the edge where the metal was poured into the mold
- A visible seam where the two molds came together
- Bumps and bubbles on the coin
The third point can be eliminated using the lost wax method of casting and the fourth by using a centrifuge to eliminate bubbles. And that is only two of the many sophisticated methods for making cast fakes. So, I checked the edge (Figure 1) with a magnifier and didn’t find any filed-off sprues or a seam. Then I used my stereoscopic microscope to check the surfaces. I didn’t observe any tooling or smoothing marks (though lots of dead skin and tiny hairs), and the lettering and images all had crisp edges. Without going into more details about fake coins, I could not find anything that conclusively indicated this was one.
Still, there are a couple of other points I should make about fake coins. To produce them, one needs an original upon which to base any reproductions. The problem was that I could not find this coin anywhere (see below), which begs the question: If fake, on what coin was this based? Also, a counterfeiter would want to make a copy of a coin that had enough value to make a handsome profit when sold as real. But if it’s unknown, then it would have to sell as being “unique”, which is hard to do (collectors like provenance and sales history). It is entirely possible that the model for my bronze coin was the aureus shown in Figure 2, but then a die would have had to have been made from scratch since the sizes don’t match.
Going forward on the assumption that the coin is real, I must now find it in my sources. There are many coin databases on the web, most of which are free. I thought that the coin would have to be an as (what is also called a reduced sestertius since this was the only large bronze denomination made during the period) or a medallion. Checking on the former, I pulled up all the asses from my sources looking for a match. I didn’t find one. In Figure 3, I show two Carinus asses, one when he was emperor (a) and one as Caesar (b; sorry for the low-quality photos but the coins are rare, which explains why there isn’t one in my collection). The former coin has a similar reverse but with Pax (“Peace”) instead of Victory walking left, but even though the size is about right (23 mm), it indicates that the imperial as (a) is too light at only 6.08 grams versus 14.15 for my bronze. The latter coin (b) has the right obverse legend and the right size (21mm), but it is also too light at 5.36 grams. And again, neither coin matches the type.
My last hope of finding a match to this coin was to check the medallions made during Carinus’ reign. Luckily there are several extant examples. Most of the medallions were made of gold and minted during his time as emperor, but I did find a couple that were minted during his reign as Caesar and also in bronze. Figure 4 shows one of these examples. The obverse legend is the same as my bronze mystery coin but the reverse is quite a bit different, showing the three Monetae (the protectresses of funds and money in ancient Rome) in line holding cornucopiae and scales. So far so good. The problem, howver, lies with the size at 36 mm and weight of 32.17 grams, which are way beyond the diameter and weight of my mystery bronze. I checked several other medallions but none of them are under 25 grams or much smaller than 30 mm.
I also checked the asses produced by Probus to see if the previous ruler issued asses that were different from the Carians. His bronze asses are about six grams, so they are not much different. I also checked the asses of Carus, and again they are essentially the same at 4.5 grams. Carus also issued a double antoninianus that is about 5.36 grams, still too light. The last coins I looked at were the sestertii of Gallienus. Of course, these were issued 15 years before the Carians, but they would offer a glimpse of what sestertii were like before they stopped being minted. Figure 5 shows a Gallienus sestertius; it weighs 12.8 grams and measures 27/30 mm. The weight range for these sestertii is 12 to 25 grams, which fits the mystery coin for both weight and size. Maybe Carinus tried to revive the sestertius.
I should also mention that I have passed the coin around at my ancient coin club (the Ancient Numismatic Society of Washington, D.C.), but no one had seen anything like it nor had an opinion about its authenticity. I have also sent photos to some of the well-known experts I know to see what they have to say. Sadly, I haven’t heard anything yet, though I’m not holding my breath (they are usually too busy to provide this service). I may have to write a coda later.
A Conclusion to the Mysterious Carinus Coin?
After many hours of research and pulling my hair out, I finally acknowledged that my returns were diminishing. In other words, “I gave up.” It’s possible that my coin is a “fantasy coin” minted by someone with considerable skill, or even an undocumented coin (sestertius?) of Carinus. For now, it goes into my collection as an unknown, with a note saying what I have done to attribute it. Maybe someday I’ll stumble upon another one.
* * *
References
Classical Numismatic Group (CNG)
Online Coins of the Roman Empire (OCRE)
Sayles, Wayne. Classical Deception: Counterfeits, Forgeries and Reproductions of Ancient Coins. Krause Publications, Iola, WI (2001).
Sear, David. Roman Coins and Their Values III. Spink (2000).
Sutherland, C.H.V., and R.A.G. Carson. The Roman Imperial Coinage. Spink and Son, London (various years).
* * *
I just finished your article and propose a solution. Since Roman reverses are propagandistic, there must be a reason for this issue. Victory is carrying a trophy, which, as you probably know, indicates victory in a battle or campaign. The trophy is planted at the spot where the tide turned, and the battle was won. The presence of a victory reverse indicates a successful campaign in real life. There must have been a victory while Carinus was Caesar, so I looked up his entry on Wikipedia, and yes, he apparently was successful against the Quadi in Gaul.
I propose that the bronze coin was issued at the same time as the gold coin of the same type to provide a donative or bonus for the soldiers who participated in the campaign. A bonus of perhaps one aureus and one sesterce for each soldier. The coins probably weren’t issued in great numbers, and since they weren’t ordinary circulating coins for the time, they probably quickly ended up in the melting pot. I can’t think of a better reason for these coins to exist.
I initially thought that the coin was a fake, but I don’t believe a faker would be sophisticated enough to come up with this exact combination of conditions – unless by accident. It might be worth the risk to get the coin authenticated by professionals. You might even be able to have this published in a journal, and add incrementally to the total of human knowledge on numismatics. It’s too late for RIC 2nd edition, but there is always the third edition after we are gone…