Cited in RIC and Depeyrot

Sale: Triton XII, Lot: 772. Estimate $7500.  Closing Date: Monday, 5 January 2009.  Sold For $6000. This amount does not include the buyer’s fee.

Constantine I. AD 307/310-337. AV Solidus (4.28 g, 6h). Nicomedia mint. Struck AD 327. CONSTANTI-NVS MAX AVG, rosette-diademed, draped, and cuirassed bust right / CONSTAN-TINVS AVG, Victory standing facing, head left, holding vertical trophy in right hand, cradling palm frond in left arm; SMAC/A. RIC VII 139 (this coin referenced); Alföldi -; Depeyrot 40/1 (this coin referenced); Cohen -. EF, light scratches and marks. Bold portrait of unusual style.

Ex J. Schulman (21 October 1935), lot 48.

A coin of unusual style, atypical of the normal Nicomedia issues. RIC footnotes on pp. 622-3 (referencing J. Hirsch XXXIV, lot 1558): “Crude work, the portrait particularly looks odd with its straggling hair and the globular ends of the individual curls, m.m. crudely engraved. The rev. legend suggests a date before the tricennial year as in Antioch, but the rev. type does not fit into the Nicomedian gallery of images. Hesitantly the present writer accepts these coins as genuine. Similar coin struck with m.m. SMTS but with bust E4 without obv. legend; Hirsch coin noted on the plate as silver, in the catalogue as gold; the weight 4.27 g. indicates solidus standard.” The mintmark is quite interesting - it is clearly SMNA with C over A. Perhaps the original exergual mark of SMNA will help firmly date the coin in future studies. It certainly adds to the mystery of an already unusual piece.