Paying attention to details. Probus, RIC 810… but not quite…

Tempo di lettura 1 min

I do realize this is only likely exciting to a very specialized collector. There are maybe 20-30 of us in the whole world who obsess about small details on coins of our favourite emperor, Probus.

Nevertheless… This is a specimen from the mint of Siscia, ostensibly a RIC 810, if we take only that book into consideration.

That is a catalogue entry which already has very many "official" variants.

It's listed as common, for the whole lot of them, disregarding the fact that some of the busts and their combinations with officinae are considerably less frequent than others.

RIC lists 5 possible busts. With two differently marked issues, the theoretical number of variants for No. 810 is 5x(6x2)=60 (5 busts, 6 workshops per issue).

The reality is somewhat different. Some workshops did not strike coins with one type of bust, or another. Some issued only one variety, there are other gaps.

There are other busts too, not listed in RIC… Alföldi⁺ counted 20 different ones. That doesn't bring the number of varieties to 20x(6x2)=240, due to a limitation mentioned above.

He counted 89 varieties, in total. Doubtless, others may exist which he has not seen in the collections available to him. That's still a lot of varieties for one entry in RIC.

New ones may come to light as new hoards are discovered, e.g. such as the recent Petrijanec find, yet not fully published.

However… to the crux of the matter. If we look in RIC, we will arrive at this description (p. 105):

OBV.: IMP C M AVR PROBVS P F AVG
Radiate bust left in consular mantle, holding sceptre surmounted by eagle.

REV.: VIRTVS PROBI AVG
Mars walking right, holding spear and trophy.

Mintmark: -|S//XXI

Consular bust, check. Titulature, check, Legend, check.
RIC 810, right? Well, not… really…

The vast majority of coins listed in RIC, corresponding to what's in collections, have a Mars walking right, holding spear and trophy.

But he is… heroically nude, with only a billowing cloak present. Sometimes in boots, usually bare footed (or the depiction is not sufficiently clear to decide what is what).
On the specimen pictured above Mars is attired in full military dress i.e. helmet, a lorica musculata with a cingulum, and boots. 

Most cataloguers, or novice collectors with no prior knowledge, will mark this as RIC 810 "common", and price it accordingly.
It is, in fact, a rare coin.

Andreas Alföldi catalogued it as type 95 (plates XLVI-XLVII, whereas RIC 810 with its sea of other commoner variants and the nude Mars corresponds, more properly, to type 96 (Plate XLIX). As it happens, Alföldi has not seen a specimen from the  officina S (neither have I, until now) and only lists Q for that issue, as 95.12. Specimen illustrated here is 95.- (unlisted).

I'm looking forward to Sylviane Estiot's (et alia) revised RIC Volume V, part two, which ought to properly enumerate, and date, all these countless varieties.





P.S. To make this even more amusing RIC 810 can also have two seated captives (listed), another rare variant.


⁺ - Siscia. V, Probus sisciai antoninianusai
Numizmatikai Közlöny, XXXVI-XXXVII, 1937-1938, p. 3-88.
Stádium Sajtóvállalat Részvénytársaság, Budapest, 1939.