Mint of Cyzicus

442, Lot: 483. Estimate $100. Sold for $190. This amount does not include the buyer’s fee.

Gallienus. AD 253-268. Antoninianus (21.5mm, 4.03 g, 6h). Cyzicus mint. Struck AD 267-8. GALLIENVS AVG, radiate, draped, and cuirassed bust left / AEQVITAS AVG, Aequitas standing left, holding scales and cornucopiae; S P Q R in exergue. MIR 36, – [1525Ab]; RIC V (sole reign) 627 var. (bust type); Cunetio –. Near VF, some silvering.

Bought from Spink, 2004. Ex Spink Numismatic Circular CXII.6 (December 2004), no. RM2070.

Various theories have been put forward over many years as to the locations of the various mints in the eastern parts of the Roman Empire and which coins were struck at each of them. This subject is too complicated to be addressed in this context, however, so I shall simply use the classification published in MIR. According to Professor Göbl, the only coins issued for Gallienus and Salonina at the mint of Cyzicus, beside the Sea of Marmara in modern Turkey, were those with the letters S P Q R in the exergue on the reverse. These all seem to have been struck in AD 267-8. (Other scholars attribute these coins to a mint at Smyrna, however.)