Search


CNG Bidding Platform

Information

Products and Services



Research Coins: Electronic Auction

 

Bronze Coins of Postumus

442, Lot: 597. Estimate $150.
Sold for $340. This amount does not include the buyer’s fee.

Postumus. Romano-Gallic Emperor, AD 260-269. Radiate bronze (31mm, 26.29 g, 5h). Struck AD 261. IMP C M CASS LAT POSTVMVS P F AVG, radiate, draped, and cuirassed bust right / P M [TR P] COS II P P; S C across field, emperor, helmeted, standing left, holding globe and spear. RIC V 106; Bastien 63; Banti 45. VF, dark brown surfaces, a few minor cleaning marks, several miniscule scratches in the fields.


Bought from Seaby, 1990. Ex Seaby Coin and Medal Bulletin 850 (May 1990), no. C259.

The classification, and even the denominations, of the bronze issues of Postumus have caused some disagreement over the years. It is normal nowadays for large module coins with laureate busts to be described as sestertii and those with radiate busts as double sestertii, by analogy with the tariff relationships between laureate denarii and radiate antoniniani in the earlier part of the third century. Whether the radiate coins actually circulated at double the value of the laureate has, as far as I know, never been conclusively demonstrated, however. Further confusion surrounds radiate coins of smaller module, which are sometimes described as dupondii and sometimes as ‘reduced double sestertii’. Again the actual value of these coins in circulation is unknown, as is the cut-off diameter at which one denomination is separated from the other.

The catalogue of coins in this collection will sidestep this problem, therefore, by describing each coin simply as either a radiate bronze or a laureate bronze. I leave it to those who have studied this series in greater detail to label them as they wish. The catalogue is ordered according to RIC V, part 2, but reference will also be made where possible to Bastien 1967 and to Banti 1987.