Unpublished Mystery Item

442, Lot: 469. Estimate $300. Sold for $1200. This amount does not include the buyer’s fee.

Salonina. Augusta, AD 254-268. Billon offstrike? (22.5mm, 4.01 g, 10h). Siscia mint(?) (or Rome?). Issue 2, AD 264-5. SALONINA AVG, diademed and draped bust right / CONCORDIA AET, Concordia seated left, holding patera and cornucopiae. MIR 36, –; RIC V –. VF, gray brown surfaces. Unpublished and apparently unique.

Ex Roma E-Sale 17 (25 April 2015), lot 963.

This item was described in the auction catalogue as a denarius, but it is much too large and heavy. The designs are also at too large a scale for this simply to be a denarius struck on an over-large flan. It could be an antoninianus with a die-sinker’s error on the obverse, omitting the crescent below the bust, and if so it must come from the Siscia mint (MIR 1417), as Rome issues with this reverse have officina marks (MIR 542-3). However, it could also be an offstrike from aureus dies. The tables in MIR leave spaces for such with this reverse type (542e, 543e and 1417), but no specimens are recorded. Gallienus aurei froim Rome of the same issue (MIR 545d and 552d) have no officina mark, so a Salonina aureus might also.