Ancient Roman Empire: silver denarius of Septimius Severus, ca. 193-211 AD
lordmarcovan
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Ancient Roman Empire: silver denarius of Septimius Severus, ca. 193-211 AD
Obverse:SEVERVS PIVS AVG, laureate head right / INDVLGENTIA AVGG, IN CARTH in exergue.
Reverse: Dea Caelestis in elaborate headdress riding right on lion, holding thunderbolt & scepter; below, water gushing from rocks left.
Sear/RCV-6285, RIC-266, RSC-222, BMC-335. 3.42 g. Ex-"pegasusauctions_com", eBay, 11/11/2014.
Coins of of the North African emperor Septimius Severus often come quite nice. He is one of the more "affordable" emperors if one wants higher grade pieces. I liked the look of this Choice AU example and thought the price fair. Additionally, the reverse type is rather interesting.
Miscellaneous links:
Larger picture
NGC cert verification page
Septimius Severus denarius, RCV-6285 (Wildwinds reference)
Wikipedia links:
Septimius Severus
Denarius
Juno (mythology) (Roman name for Dea Caelestis)
Tanit (original Carthaginian form of Dea Caelestis)
When posted here, this coin was part of my "Eclectic Box of 20" collection.
Obverse:SEVERVS PIVS AVG, laureate head right / INDVLGENTIA AVGG, IN CARTH in exergue.
Reverse: Dea Caelestis in elaborate headdress riding right on lion, holding thunderbolt & scepter; below, water gushing from rocks left.
Sear/RCV-6285, RIC-266, RSC-222, BMC-335. 3.42 g. Ex-"pegasusauctions_com", eBay, 11/11/2014.
Coins of of the North African emperor Septimius Severus often come quite nice. He is one of the more "affordable" emperors if one wants higher grade pieces. I liked the look of this Choice AU example and thought the price fair. Additionally, the reverse type is rather interesting.
Miscellaneous links:
Larger picture
NGC cert verification page
Septimius Severus denarius, RCV-6285 (Wildwinds reference)
Wikipedia links:
Septimius Severus
Denarius
Juno (mythology) (Roman name for Dea Caelestis)
Tanit (original Carthaginian form of Dea Caelestis)
When posted here, this coin was part of my "Eclectic Box of 20" collection.
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Comments
a good looking portrait and nice clear inscriptions, often the inscriptions on his coins can be blobby, and a fun reverse type, as you've pointed out they liked the Carthaginian goddess Tanit so much that they borrowed her as Dea Caelestis
<< <i>I always liked that reverse Rob, which as NiceCurrency suggests is very appropriate for S. Severus who was from a town near Carthage. Congrats on a nice example. I may have missed it, but what coin in your "box o' 20" does this replace?
To tell you the truth, I'm not totally sure. It got a bit complicated. There was a reshuffle towards the end of last year before I went dormant for several months. I ended up with 20 coins in slabs and two raw ones pending certification.
I swapped or sold off the last two remnants of my Roman 12 Caesars set (the Tribute Penny and the Otho denarius). Part of that money went to buy the 15th century goldgulden, which is one of the raw coins waiting to be slabbed. With the remainder, I bought that Republican denarius, and then, since I lacked any Roman Imperials, I bought this one. Now I have four ancients in the Box of 20, and they fall into the major categories: one each from the Greek, Roman Republican, Roman Imperial, and Byzantine eras.
I will miss that Otho especially, but it was only a Fine. It served well to fill a tough hole in a 12 Caesars set, but for this more eclectic set a higher grade (albeit more common) issue like this will do.
Both of my present Romans are circulated (AU for this one and Ch VF for the Republican). One day I may upgrade both to MS examples in both of those categories, and may even go MS/PR for all the coins in the Box of 20. But I still like to play with slightly more offbeat stuff that's only affordable (to me) in the circulated grades, so the Box remains a mixture of circ and MS/PR coins for the time being.