Mint of Siscia

442, Lot: 457. Estimate $100. Sold for $190. This amount does not include the buyer’s fee.

Gallienus. AD 253-268. Antoninianus (20mm, 3.88 g, 12h). Siscia mint. Issue 1, AD 262-3. GALLIENVS AVG, radiate and cuirassed bust right, viewed from rear / [P M] T P [C V P P], emperor standing right, holding sceptre and globe, crowned by Victory, standing right, behind him. MIR 36, 1393dd; RIC V –; Cunetio –. Fine, rough and pitted brown surfaces. Very rare.

Bought from Baldwin's, 1995.

Only two examples of this rare reverse type were known to Göbl, both with this obverse bust. The illustrated piece, copied from Alföldi 1927-8, is from the same dies as this coin. The reverse legend, including a reference to Gallienus’s fifth consulate, demonstrates that this first issue at Siscia could not have commenced before AD 262. MIR (p. 118) notes a previously published observation that, since there are no issues at Siscia marking the emperor’s decennalia, the mint is can not have commenced striking until much later in the year.

The mint at Siscia, in the province of Pannonia (modern Sisak in Croatia), was opened in late AD 262 or early 263 in order to supply coinage to pay the armies on the Danube frontier (MIR pp. 118-9). Stylistic similarities demonstrate that it was staffed initially by personnel transferred from the Rome mint. Göbl identified no less than thirteen separate issues during the remainder of Gallienus’s reign. Most of the types identified are represented by very few specimens located, and this collection contains a number of varieties not known at all to Göbl, but by contrast some of the issues of greatest interest (e.g. IO CANTAB and SISCIA AVG) are among those of which he knew of the most specimens. This must simply be a reflection of the collecting priorities of the major museums, where most or all of these specimens are to be found.