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Help identify coin Sestertius


Amarmur

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Even if it were a toolie, it's still a bargain for $5.  And it's kind of cool that a flea market would have it.  I bought my first ancients at a decrepit flea market.

However, my advice from the other thread still stands.  Save up and get some nicer ones; you'll be happier in the long run with nicer examples.

For $5, I would have bought it, too, mainly to rescue it.

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3 hours ago, curtislclay said:

A rather worn specimen, but I see no signs of tooling.

My issue with this coin would be the following: how is it possible that normal, symmetrical wear (due to circulation) smoothed the left edges of the bust, yet the right edges around the mouth, lips, and chin are exceedingly sharp?  Also, to my eye it appears that the entire bust has a bit of a channel re-engraved around it to make the portrait stand out.

Trajan.jpg.89910841a13f4f931ecded0e64802594.jpg

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The tooling debate is interesting; I inexpertly lean towards the OP being "not tooled," based only on the many very worn Trajan AEs in my collection.  My guess (only a guess) is that the central devices are often so highly struck originally on Trajan's big AEs that even after extensive wear they maintain a strong outline, even when most of the legend is worn away.   Sure, I prefer higher grade coins, but one of the charming aspects of collecting ancients is the way even very worn specimens can still display fine portraiture.  

Here are Trajanic three smoothies from my collection - of course these could be tooled as well: 

1644161236_Trajan-SestArmeniaTigisEuphraMar2022(0).jpg.50118e58cedffb4f7fd0ece8e2d1c246.jpg833840213_Trajan-Sest.VictoryVICPARTSep2019dov(1).jpg.c7697bc89404b2c06874d97a505efbcf.jpg1158877810_Trajan-SestertiusAbundantiamodiusMay2022(0).jpg.15ec8ddc5c2e93062399bd62582cae18.jpg

 

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4 hours ago, Marsyas Mike said:

My guess (only a guess) is that the central devices are often so highly struck originally on Trajan's big AEs that even after extensive wear they maintain a strong outline, even when most of the legend is worn away.

Just to be clear, the issue I'm pointing out is not sharp edges per se, but rather how some edges can remain sharp while similarly struck edges are rounded, despite the very high likelihood that the wear due to circulation was symmetrical in terms of both direction and frequency.  I'm always bewildered by how these sharp edges seem to be around the features of the obverse portrait, or the reverse devices that are important to the coin's value.

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2 hours ago, singig said:

...below I compared the OP coin with a similar one in the same degree of wear.

Thanks for posting this image.  Below I have circled three similar areas in each coin to compare each area's edges (there are other areas as well):

image.jpeg.7d0caa055d8db33795580cefe1c67e8b.jpeg

Clearly, in the left coin, the edges are much sharper than in the right coin, even though both coins seem to exhibit similar amounts of wear on the devices and fields.  I can't think of any natural wear process that would leave the edges sharp on one coin but rounded and smooth on another coin.  Unless an expert can explain how this could happen, my tentative conclusion is that the edges were somehow artificially enhanced.

Possibly it could be argued that when the coin was cleaned, the fields near the edges in the left coin were cleaned a bit over-zealously near the outlines of the bust, resulting in the sharp edges.  But even if this were the case, I would think that such cleaning is vanishingly close to tooling.

I am open to explanations that would explain the sharp edges -- I just can't think of any myself.

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The OP photo is in high resolution , if you magnify you will see no traces of tooling in front of the neck ,

there are some brown deposits and the small line connecting the aegis with the neck is not interrupted by a trench.

trajan ---.jpg

Edited by singig
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6 hours ago, idesofmarch01 said:

I am open to explanations that would explain the sharp edges -- I just can't think of any myself.

I see no tooling but ample proof that lighting angles can make the same coin look different.  Worn Trajan sestertii seem to retain certain features long after others are gone.  This thread has shown that well.  Below are my worn out Trajans.

rc1725bb3274.jpg.2830a02a97c8c8adfb15f87dff9ad289.jpgrc1730bb1137.jpg.2042ad1ad7e1343288c98f4b2a103cd3.jpg

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