Sale: Triton XII, Lot: 777. Estimate $2000.  Closing Date: Monday, 5 January 2009.  Sold For $4250. This amount does not include the buyer’s fee.

Constantine II. AD 337-340. AR Siliqua (3.25 g, 6h). Antioch mint. Struck circa AD 337(?). Laureate head right / CONSTAN-TINVS AVG, Victory advancing left, holding wreath in right hand and palm frond in left; SMAN. Unpublished. EF, attractively toned, hairline flan crack. Very rare.

From the Gordon S. Parry Collection. Ex Dr. John Jacobs Collection (Superior, 13 August 1995), lot 983; Numismatic Fine Arts XX (9 March 1988), lot 526.

This silver issue at Antioch, with mintmark SMAN (cf. RIC VII 105-7), falls at the very end of Constantine I’s reign. At this time, Constantine always appeared on all metals wearing a diadem, while the laurel wreath was reserved for the Caesares. In the subsequent issue, also with anepigraphic obverse, but a new reverse (cf. RIC VIII 32-4), both Constantine II and Constantius II retain the laurel wreath even though they are now Augusti. This unique piece is either an unpublished mule from the final issue of Constantine I with an obverse of Constantine II paired with a reverse for Constantine I, or else it is an otherwise unknown trial issue struck upon the accession of Constantine II, retaining the reverse type of Constantine I.