CNG 90, Lot: 1617. Estimate $750. Sold for $3500. This amount does not include the buyer’s fee.

Caracalla, with Geta as Caesar. AD 198-217. AR Denarius (18mm, 3.26 g, 5h). Laodicea mint. Struck AD 199. IMP CAE M AVR AN T AVG P TR P II, laureate and draped bust of Caracalla right / P SEPTIMIVS GETA CAES, bareheaded and draped bust of Geta right. RIC –; RSC –; Münzen und Medaillen AG XXV, lot 625 (same rev. die). Good VF, traces of deposits on reverse. An extremely rare issue, one of three known.

At first glance, the combination of legends on this issue would seem impossible, as their traditional arrangement at the eastern mint (presumably Laodicea) would not allow for their concurrent use. Three legends are found on Geta's issues at Laodicea, and Mattingly arranged them according to their relative sequence at Rome: (1) L SEPTIMIVS GETA CAES, (2) P SEPT GETA CAES PONT, and (3) P SEPTIMIVS GETA CAES. Rome had additional legends that were interspersed among these, but this seems to have been irrelevant for Mattingly's arrangement at Laodicea. A close inspection of the coinage at the eastern mint, and particularly the dynastic coinage, reveals the flaw in Mattingly's arrangement. The present type shows that Geta's legend 3 was in use in the east as early as the time of Caracalla's second tribunician year, AD 199. Moreover, BMC 729 shows that Geta was using legend 2 during the time of Caracalla's 4th tribunician year, shortly before the closure of the eastern mint in AD 202. Thus, the progression of Geta's legends at the eastern mint was actually 1-3-2. It would appear that the Syrian mint, hearing circa 199 of Geta’s change of praenomen but without any Rome-mint coin at hand to copy the new legend from, simply changed the L of its first legend to P, and so anticipated a legend that the mint of Rome would later independently adopt for Geta from circa 206 until he became Augustus late in 209. A full review of the coinage will be detailed in a future publication by Curtis Clay (whom we acknowledge with providing the above information).