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Research Coins: Electronic Auction

 

Extremely Rare Severus Alexander Æ Medallion

446, Lot: 371. Estimate $300.
Sold for $1400. This amount does not include the buyer’s fee.

Severus Alexander. AD 222-235. Æ Medallion (31mm, 17.40 g, 12h). Rome mint. 13th emission. IMP ALEXAN DER PIVS AVG, laureate, draped, and cuirassed bust right / VICTORIA AVG VSTI (without S C), Severus Alexander in military dress, on horseback galloping right, throwing spear with right hand; to left, soldier advancing right, holding spear over right shoulder and shield in left; to right, Victory advancing right, holding up wreath in right hand; to far right, captive seated on ground. RIC IV 652 (Sestertius); BMCRE 784; Gnecchi 34; Banti 168 (Sestertius). Fine, green patina, thick earthen encrustation. Extremely rare. None in CoinArchives. Banti lists one example, the plated coin in BMCRE.


Joycelyn M. C. Toynbee in Roman Medallions wrote “It is interesting to speculate how far S C on the aes from the Flavian period onwards really denoted the actual passing of a senatusconsultum for every issue or whether it had become merely polite and conventional. Medallions may throw some light upon this problem. It is perfectly obvious why S C should be normally absent from presentation pieces, standing outside the regular currencies and endowed with a special character as personal gifts from the Emperor to individuals. A senatusconsultum was clearly out of the question there” (pp. 47-48). “If however, by the second and third centuries the letters survived on the ordinary aes currency as a tradition, no longer necessarily implying an actual legal enactment, we understand how they could occasionally appear on gift pieces not originally intended for regular circulation. Similarly, the continuance into the second and third centuries of pseudo medallions, issued as occasional presentation pieces along with the great series of medallions proper, is more easily explicable if the senatorial formula on their reverses had by then largely lost its original connotation and become, to some extent, at any rate, a symbol” (Toynbee, p. 48).
“We may conclude that until the middle of the third century true bronze medallions, money medallions and pseudo medallions were all alike the product of a single Roman mint under imperial control; that the medallions...were struck in special officinae of their own, but beneath the same roof as the regular coinage” (Toynbee, p. 48).
R. A. G. Carson in Coins of The Roman Empire in the British Museum wrote that “The Victory and Virtus medallions...are found only with the bust and inscription of group 3. They may in fact be associated with the special issue for Alexander’s Persian triumph in 233 but both themes are annunciated on coin types in issue 13 and the type of emperor on horseback on the Victory medallion bears a close resemblance to that on the profectio medallion” (Vol. VI, p. 79).