Two Puzzling Nummi from the Cyzicus Mint

[Al Kowsky]

One of the great joys 😀 & frustrations 😖 about ancient coins is accurately attributing them. Both coins pictured below are in my collection; the top coin I won at auction about 14 years ago & the bottom coin I won at auction about 3 years ago, & both coins have been slabbed by NGC.

Cyzicus Mint, 3rd Officina, Struck AD 305-308. Billon Nummus: 9.54 gm, 27 mm, 6 h. 

Cyzicus Mint, 1st Officina, Struck AD 305-311, Billon Nummus: 9.07 gm, 27 mm, 6 h.

So here is the puzzle, who issued these coins 🤔? Many members of this website collect Diocletian era nummi / follis, so please give me your thoughts & tomorrow I'll post the auction & slab information. 

Edited February 25 by Al Kowsky
spelling correction

[Valentinian]

Here is my site on telling tetrarchal emperors apart:
http://augustuscoins.com/ed/tetrarchy/distinguishing.html
Coins with these legends are discussed.
 

[Heliodromus]

I wouldn't care to guess what's written on the slabs, but in actuality:

1) During the 1st tetrarchy (2nd coin - Galerius as caesar), Diocletian controlled Cyzicus

2) During the 2nd tetrarchy (1st coin - Daia as caesar), the territories controlled by the eastern tetrarchs shifted, rather than just staying the same and passing to new hands. Galerius appears to have ceded Pannonia to Severus II, but taken Asiana (incl. Cyzicus) and Pontica for himself, only allowing Daia to control (the admittedly large) Orientis rather than the whole of Diocletian's former territory. Orientis, Asiana and Pontica would only be rejoined under common rule (of Daia) after the death of Galerius.

The coins, as always, can be considered to have been issued by whoever controlled the territory the mint lay in, hence Galerius as caesar issued by Diocletian, and Daia as caesar issued by Galerius.

[Valentinian]

4 minutes ago, Heliodromus said:

The coins, as always, can be considered to have been issued by whoever controlled the territory the mint lay in, 

This might be a bit misleading. It is true, but does not help decide who is on the coin. Under the First Tetrarchy all mints issued coins for all the tetrarchs. You can see many examples at this page:
http://augustuscoins.com/ed/tetrarchy/bymint.html

where  GENIO POPVLI ROMANI folles are classified by mint. It is missing many images, but it illustrates all four for most mints.
This list of all rulers from all mints makes it clear:
http://augustuscoins.com/ed/tetrarchy/GPRtypes.html
Under the First Tetrarchy, the ruler controlling a mint has nothing to do with who is on its coins. This changed when Maxentius and Constantine became rulers and the some of the other rulers didn't feel obligated to mint for them. 

[Severus Alexander]

The two coins are remarkably similar, for sure!  It's important to notice that "A" in the second one. 😄

Here's an even subtler difference at the mint.  Amazingly (to me, at least) these two coins get different RIC numbers and belong to different issues:

So what's the key difference here? (For experts: do you think the distinction is legit?)

Edited February 25 by Severus Alexander

[Heliodromus]

1 hour ago, Valentinian said:

but does not help decide who is on the coin

No, but there's no ambiguity over that in this case. MAXIMIANVS CAES can only be Galerius given that Maximianus never held that title.

The only reason I added the "issued by whoever controlled the mint" is because I've seen people think that coins were issued by whoever appears on them, which of course was not the case.

[Al Kowsky]

I think everyone will be surprised by the information I post tomorrow 😉....

[SteveJBrinkman]

3 hours ago, Severus Alexander said:

So what's the key difference here? (For experts: do you think the distinction is legit?)

So everything else being equal,  the most obvious difference is the style of the portrait.   RIC cites the different styles of Cyzicus 9a and 11a.  Presumably the dies with the long wavy beard, the scarcer style, are RIC 9a (RIC group ii).  The 2nd officina (K B) is found with both styles so presumably both issues were from the same mint workshop at about the same time.  Stylistic differences are often used in early Roman coinage to suggest different mints or times, but in this case, the mint and officina are known, as well as the time.  It looks to me like these were simply the work of two different die cutters.  Interesting as the differences are, in my opinion they don't warrant different RIC numbers.

[Kiaora]

4 hours ago, Severus Alexander said:

The two coins are remarkably similar, for sure!  It's important to notice that "A" in the second one. 😄

Here's an even subtler difference at the mint.  Amazingly (to me, at least) these two coins get different RIC numbers and belong to different issues:

So what's the key difference here? (For experts: do you think the distinction is legit?)

Size of the bust and relief are the (too subjective in my opinion!) distinction made by RIC

[seth77]

If the future of cataloging lrbs is assigning a different number for each die pairing then God help us all.

[Al Kowsky]

I won this nummus from CNG 217, lot 411, where it was attributed to Maximinus II as Caesar, Struck AD 305-308, RIC VI 20b or 24a. Ex Alexandre de Barros Collection. As can be seen, it was also attributed to Maximinus II, & slabbed by NGC. This coin type is also listed under Maximinus II by David Sear in his book ROMAN COINS and Their Values, Volume IV, #14716. This coin was also listed & pictured under Maximinus II, by Wild Winds.     Can all these sources be wrong 🤔?

This coin was sold by Heritage, & attributed to Galerius as Caesar, circa AD 295-296, RIC VI 9b. This attribution looks solid to me.

This is another coin from the Cyzicus mint that could easily be misattributed to Galerius as Caesar. So what's the point of all this 🤔? Don't instantly attribute a coin by it's obverse inscription alone 😏.

 

[SteveJBrinkman]

1 hour ago, Al Kowsky said:

 Can all these sources be wrong 🤔?

@Al Kowsky, I don't understand the mystery here.  The first coin is clearly an issue of Maximinus II as Caesar, as attributed by all of your sources.  What are you suggesting is wrong with these attributions?

[Heliodromus]

15 hours ago, Al Kowsky said:

I think everyone will be surprised by the information I post tomorrow 😉....

I don't understand why you think anyone would be surprised !?

[Heliodromus]

17 hours ago, Severus Alexander said:

So what's the key difference here? (For experts: do you think the distinction is legit?)

RIC makes the distinction between the two "issues" based on bust size, with the earlier one being smaller. On the initial "KV" (no officina) issue of this type the bust is certainly smaller than some of these later ones with officina, so RIC's presumably right about the sequencing. I don't agree with RIC's decision to attribute these differently though, and RIC is inconsistent on when it does this. I think attributions should be based on non-subjective criteria unless one is forced to do otherwise (e.g. attribute to mint based on style, when there is no mintmark specifing the mint).

[thejewk]

I'm confused Al.  The first is Maximinus II as caesar and all the attributions are for Maximinus II as caesar, with some variation regarding the dating.  The second coins clearly reads MAXIMIANVS and not MAXIMINVS, and it is for a caesar, and as there are only coins of Maximianus Herculeus as augustus, it must be Galerius.

Edited February 25 by thejewk
Typo

[Severus Alexander]

On 2/24/2023 at 8:55 PM, SteveJBrinkman said:

So everything else being equal,  the most obvious difference is the style of the portrait.   RIC cites the different styles of Cyzicus 9a and 11a.  Presumably the dies with the long wavy beard, the scarcer style, are RIC 9a (RIC group ii).  The 2nd officina (K B) is found with both styles so presumably both issues were from the same mint workshop at about the same time.  Stylistic differences are often used in early Roman coinage to suggest different mints or times, but in this case, the mint and officina are known, as well as the time.  It looks to me like these were simply the work of two different die cutters.  Interesting as the differences are, in my opinion they don't warrant different RIC numbers.

On 2/24/2023 at 9:47 PM, Kiaora said:

Size of the bust and relief are the (too subjective in my opinion!) distinction made by RIC

13 hours ago, Heliodromus said:

RIC makes the distinction between the two "issues" based on bust size, with the earlier one being smaller. On the initial "KV" (no officina) issue of this type the bust is certainly smaller than some of these later ones with officina, so RIC's presumably right about the sequencing. I don't agree with RIC's decision to attribute these differently though, and RIC is inconsistent on when it does this. I think attributions should be based on non-subjective criteria unless one is forced to do otherwise (e.g. attribute to mint based on style, when there is no mintmark specifing the mint).

I tend to agree with you all that different RIC numbers aren't warranted here. (Cloke and Toone take a similar view in their catalogue of the London mint involving exactly the same sort of distinction made by RIC.) The distinction is allegedly: the earlier issue (RIC 9-10) has 1) smaller heads in 2) higher relief on 3) smaller and 4) thicker flans, in only 5) 5 officinae.  The later issue (RIC 11-12) has larger, flatter heads on larger, thinner flans, in 6 officinae.

It occurs to me that it might be useful to collect up some images of coins from the 6th officina, which would have to be from the later issue according to RIC.  I'll do that if I get a chance and show the results here.

[Severus Alexander]

On 2/25/2023 at 11:48 PM, Severus Alexander said:

It occurs to me that it might be useful to collect up some images of coins from the 6th officina, which would have to be from the later issue according to RIC.  I'll do that if I get a chance and show the results here.

Better late than never!  Here are the coins from the sixth officina that I found on acsearch. They're mostly Diocletian, with only one Maximianus, and none for the Caesars:

Quite consistent in style, but I wouldn't say these look to have larger, flatter heads.  (For example, the bottom right coin looks to be in fairly high relief, and the one above it has a small head.)

For comparison, here are some Constantius as Augustus coins from the sixth officina, next issue (RIC 21a):

Very similar, including some smallish heads.  Missing is the curly-beard style... but as @SteveJBrinkman points out that could just be due to a particular engraver in the second officina and doesn't warrant distinguishing two issues.  If we were to do so, however, the curly-bearded portraits should presumably be placed earlier, given the style of the demonstrably later Constantius as Augustus coins.