The ‘RSR’ Mintmark

Sale: Triton XIII, Lot: 367. Estimate $5000.  Closing Date: Monday, 4 January 2010.  Sold For $5500. This amount does not include the buyer’s fee.

Carausius. Romano-British Emperor, AD 286-293. AR Denarius (3.82 g, 6h). ‘RSR’ mint. IMP CARAVSIVS P F AVG, laureate, draped, and cuirassed bust right / FELIC ITAS, galley on waves, with central mast and four rowers, sailing right; RSR. RIC V 560; Shiel 56 and pl. I, 56 (same dies); Casey pl. 2, 11; RSC 53. EF, toned. attractive strike on good quality metal.

Ex Friend of the Romans Collection (Münzen und Medaillen 92, 22 November 2002), lot 274; Numismatica Ars Classica 5 (25 February 1992), lot 574.

This mintmark has yet to be positively identified, but see de la Bédoyère, "Carausius and the Marks RSR and I.N.P.C.D.A.," NC 1998, for an interpretation of RSR as a quote from Vergil's Eclogues iv.6-7: Redeunt Saturnia Regna, and the placement of the issue at London.