Unique – MIR Plate Coin
Extremely Rare Bust Type

442, Lot: 439. Estimate $300. Sold for $1700. This amount does not include the buyer’s fee.

Gallienus. AD 253-268. Antoninianus (23mm, 3.26 g, 6h). Mediolanum (Milan) mint. Issue 4, AD 262-3. IMP GALLIENVS AVG GER, radiate, draped, and cuirassed bust left, right hand raised, shield on left arm / LAETITIA AVG, Laetitia standing left, holding wreath and anchor. MIR 36, 1115w (this coin illustrated); RIC V (sole reign) 490 var. (obv. legend and bust type). VF, good silver content, flan a little irregular. Apparently unique, the sole example listed in MIR.

Ex Mūnzen & Medaillen GmbH 43 (26 February 2016), lot 495; Sternberg XV (11 April 1985), lot 551.

This coin was discussed and illustrated by Doyen, ‘types iconographiques’ (1987), p. 100 no. 12, and Pl. 8, no. 12a. See introductory chapter on Portraiture for further discussion.

Lot numbers 438a–d and 439 all belong to an large issue of antoniniani from Milan with the Laetitia reverse type (MIR 1093-1124). The variety of obverse legends, bust types and officina marks employed in this series is extensive, but only a very few of these combinations are represented in MIR by substantial numbers of recorded coins (some of 1093, 1095 and 1098). Many of the others were known to Göbl from a single coin only, and the fact that three of the variants in this collection were not recorded in MIR at all indicates that even more are probably still to be identified. This raises a number of questions: why was this particular reverse type deemed to be of such significance at this mint at this time?; why were so many different dies, both obverse and reverse, devoted to this issue?; and why are so few examples of most of them known to exist today?

Laetitia simply means ‘joy’ or ‘gladness’, an emotion no doubt to be experienced by the Romans as a result of the beneficial rule of the emperor, but why is it represented by a figure holding a wreath and an anchor? Melville Jones (1990, p. 156) suggests that the anchor may imply a connection with the corn supply to Rome, but that seems less probable on coins struck at the military mint in Milan. The large number of different dies implies that the coin issue was intended to be very large, so there must have been some important message to be conveyed on these coins, even if it is difficult today to discover what that may have been. The small number of recorded coins of most of the variants suggests, on the other hand, that the number of coins actually struck may have fallen far short of what had been intended. On the other hand, many other Milan mint types, of this and other issues, are also represented in MIR by very few actual coins. Is this simply the result of the accidents of survival, or does it reflect the collecting policy of those major institutions whose collections were studied by Göbl in the preparation of MIR? Are Milan mint coins less likely to have been included in hoards, owing to a restricted area of distribution? There seems to be scope for a great deal of research to be done on this topic.