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Research Coins: Electronic Auction

 

Extremely Rare Facing Head Carausius

436, Lot: 710. Estimate $500.
Sold for $650. This amount does not include the buyer’s fee.

Carausius. Romano-British Emperor, AD 286-293. Æ Antoninianus (21mm, 3.21 g, 7h). ‘C’ mint. Bareheaded, draped and cuirassed bust facing three-quarters right / Pax standing left, holding olive branch in raised right hand and scepter cradled in left arm. RIC V –, cf. 400 (facing bust with Salus reverse); Shiel –; Sear RCV IV –; see Dix-Noonan-Web Ltd. Auction 152 (14 November 2018), lot 1415 for similar example. Fair, flan severely chipped and covered with mineralized deposits. Extremely rare, one of two known examples with this reverse type.


From a Bay Area collection, purchased from Tom Cederlind, 29 September 1997.

Facing coin portraits of Roman rulers are rare occurrences until the fourth century AD, when they become more and more commonplace as the century progresses. This issue of the rebel Romano-British Emperor Carausius, struck in the 290s, represents a relatively early attempt at frontal portraiture; its forerunners were rare denarius type of Augustus (RIC I 356) and an exceedingly rare aureus of Postumus struck circa AD 261 (RIC V 277). The previously recorded examples (RIC V 400) had a reverse type of Salus feeding a snake; the heavily encrusted condition of the present example at first led it to be included in this group. However, close examination shows the arm of the reverse figure to be raised, thus identifying the deity as Pax. The only other known example combining a frontal portrait with a Pax reverse was recently sold by Dix-Noonan-Web in London for the equivalent of $15,600 hammer price.