Unpublished Antoninianus

442, Lot: 479. Estimate $500. Sold for $320. This amount does not include the buyer’s fee.

Gallienus. AD 253-268. Antoninianus (21mm, 3.51 g, 6h). Siscia mint. Issue 4, AD 267-8. GALLIENVS AVG, radiate bust left, wearing lion-skin around shoulders and carrying club over right shoulder / FORTVNA REDVX, Fortuna seated left holding rudder and cornucopiae; wheel below seat. Unpublished, but reverse type as MIR 36, 1458. Near VF, some silvering, weakly struck. Apparently unique.

Ex Numismatica Ars Classica 64 (17 May 2012), lot 2709.

This combination of bust type and reverse is otherwise unrecorded. This ‘Hercules’ bust was used at both Milan and Siscia (see introductory chapter on Portraiture), as was this reverse type, but at Milan all coins on which the latter occurs have an officina mark in the exergue (MIR 1347-1349). At Siscia this reverse is recorded by MIR (1458a) only on an aureus, but antoniniani of the same issue (4) are without officina mark. On balance, therefore, I am attributing this coin to Siscia. The obverse die may be the same as that used for MIR 1424s and 1441s, of Issue 3, but the photographs in MIR are not of a high enough quality to establish a definite link.