Trajan AE As (ITALIA REST, Woytek 367b)

TRAJAN, AD 98-117
AE As (27.59mm, 10.04g, 6h)
Struck AD 103-111. Rome mint
Obverse: IMP CAES NERVAE TRAIANO AVG GER DAC P M TR P COS V P P, laureate head of Trajan right, with paludament on left shoulder
Reverse: SPQR OPTIMO PRINCIPI, Trajan, togate, standing left, holding a long eagle scepter in left hand and giving his right hand to the personification of Italia (wearing turreted crown) kneeling in front of him, holding a globe in her left hand; between them, two children standing right with arms outstretched; S C across fields, ITALIA REST in exergue
References: RIC -, BMCRE -, RCV -, C -, Woytek 367b (same dies), Strack 412.

Trajan’s ‘ITALIA REST’ or ‘REST ITAL’ (Italy Restored) series of coinage was struck in aurei as well as the three main AE denominations. All of the types are very rare today and must have been struck in very limited numbers, but the as is perhaps the rarest of them all. It is unlisted in most of the major references, and the two who do mention it - Paul L. Strack's Die Reichsprägung zur Zeit des Trajan (1931), and Bernhard Woytek's more recent Die Reichsprägung des kaisers Traianus (2010) both cite the same two specimens: one in Vienna (which is the illustrated plate coin in Woytek's catalog) and one in Munich.
There is a third very worn example on wildwinds.com. This coin is apparently the fourth specimen known, struck with the same dies as the Woytek (Vienna) plate coin.

Collection : Roman Imperial - the Nerva-Antonine Emperors