My last and final auction of Probus coins

[Barnaba6]

32 rare Probus coins carefully selected from my specialized collection will be hammered on the 28 Septmeber 2023 by Roma Numismatics Limited:

https://romanumismatics.com/e-sale-...earch_lot_no=&sort_by=lot_number&view=bidders

The auction will also soon appear on sixbid, numisbids and biddr.ch.

Many of the coins offered are true rarities, known from only a few examples, and unpublished in reference catalogues like RIC, MPR or Alfodi.

You may have come across one of my 12 previous specialized Probus coins auctions organized in the last 3 years by Rzeszowski Dom Aukcyjny, Gabinet Numizmatyczny Damian Marciniak and Roma Numismatics auction houses.

My upcoming 13th auction is my last and final auction. So it's the last opportunity for you to acquire some Probus coins from my specialized collection, especially when considering that the remaining part of my Probus collection was recently acquired by the National Museum in Cracow, Poland.

In my 10 years of active collecting I was able to acquire the second biggest private Probus collection in the world, comprising of almost 2,000 different examples. My (ex) whole Probus collection (organized into 10 folders; one folder per each mint operating under Probus) is available for view here:

www.colleconline.com/en/collections/3268/barnaba6

I hope you participate actively in my last auction and wish you all good luck and many successful bids!

[Barnaba6]

Below is a short note on Probus coinage which I wrote when promoting of one of my earlier auctions: 

The Roman emperor Marcus Aurelius Probus ruled for only 6 years (years 276-282 AD), but he left behind an exceptionally rich and interesting coinage, unique in the whole Roman empire. There are about a dozen thousand types (including numerous variants) of Probus coins!

Probus coins were struck by as many as 10 mints: Lugdunum (today's Lyon in France), Rome, Ticinum (today's Pavia in Italy), Siscja (today's Sisak in Croatia), Serdyka (today's Sofia in Bulgaria), Kyzikos (northern Turkey) Antioch (southern Turkey), Tripolis (today's northern Lebanon), a fourth eastern mint of as yet undetermined location and Alexandria (Egypt).

Each mint had its own unique style and consisted of a number of workshops minting particular types of coins.

The coinage of Probus captivates with an incredible wealth of types of reverses (over 100), many of which have several or even more than a dozen of different iconographic variants, a wealth of variants of imperial titulature (about 100), as well as a wealth of types of imperial bust (several dozen).

In addition, some bust types have many distinctly different variants not counting rare and sought-after decorations of the shield or cuirass in the form of, e.g. a Gorgon, an emperor on horseback, Sol's head, Sol in a quadriga, a laurel wreath, a floret, rows of soldiers with shields and many, many others.

Some Probus reverses are unique in the entire Roman coinage (e.g. ORIGINI AVG or SISICA PROBI AVG).

Similarly, some rare and sought-after Probus titulatures do not have their equivalents among coins of other emperors (e.g. titulatures BONO or PERPETVO) or are extremely rare and desired, e.g. the famous titulature DEO ET DOMINO.

Coinage is a very important source of knowledge about the reign of Probus, considering that - apart from a small number of papyri and inscriptions - no written (literary) sources contemporary to Probus have survived: in particular Scriptores historiae Augustae; De vita Caesarum; and the New History of Zosimos were written respectively more than 100 and 200 years after Probus' death.

A reliable, updated catalog (corpus) of Probus' entire coinage is unfortunately lacking so far. Volume V.2 of the Roman Imperial Coinage (RIC) by Percy Webb on Probus, among others, was published in 1933 and is completely outdated. It fails to record many hundreds, if not thousands, of currently known Probus coin types, assigns many coins to the wrong mints, and sometimes records types that do not actually exist. Therefore, attribution in the RIC for Probus coins must be approached with great caution.

The primary catalogs of the Probus mint - in addition to RIC V.2 - are:

Bastien (Pierre) for Lugdunum coins (Le monnayage de l'atelier de Lyon : de la réouverture de l'atelier par Aurélien à la mort de Carin (fin 274-mi 285), Wetteren, Éd. Numismatique romaine, 1976, 287 p., LXIII pl);

Alfoldi (Andreas) for Siscia coins (Siscia. Vorarbeiten zu einem Corpus der in Siscia geprägten römischen Kaisermünzen. Heft V. Verzeichnis der Antoniniane des Kaisers Probus, Budapest, 1939, 88 p. (extrait de Numizmatikai Közlöny, t. XXXVI-XXXVII, 1937-1938);

Guillemain (Jean) for Rome coins (La monetazione di Probo a Roma (276-282 d.C.), Rome, Quasar, 2009, 286 p., 20 pl. (« Ripostiglio della Venèra, Nuovo catalogo illustrato », III, 1).

Estiot (Sylviane) for coins from the 4th eastern mint ("L’Empereur et l’usurpateur: un 4e atelier oriental sous Probus"; Studies in ancient coinage in honor of Anndrew Burnett, Spink, London, 2015).

Also of great importance is the work of Karl Pink (Numismatische Zeitschrift, Der Aufbau der Romischen Munzpragung in der Kaiserzeit, VI/1 Probus, Wien, 1949), which to this day is the primary source when it comes to the description and chronology of individual issues (emmissions) within the mints of Ticinum, Siscia, Serdica, Kyzikos, Antioch and Tripolis. However, this work, too, is in need of revision and some divisions and classifications of issues are no longer tenable today.

Lack of up-to-date, reliable catalogs concerning the whole Probus coinage makes it significantly easier for collectors to search for previously unpublished coin types, thanks to which they significantly contribute to the development of knowledge about the Probus coinage, including the preparation of modern catalogs. For many years, collectors have been actively collaborating, e.g. on the revision of RIC volume V.2 under the guidance of Prof. Sylviane Estiot (the invaluable contribution of the late Philippe Gysen is worth mentioning here).

Collectors are also the authors of these fantastic and highly useful websites about Probus coinage:

www.probvs.net
www.probuscoins.fr

Finally, it was the collector Alexander Missong who first discovered and published the puzzling coded Eqviti series in his article 'Gleichartig systemisirte Münzreihen unter Kaiser Probus', Numismatische Zeitschrift (1873). For more information on the fascinating (A)EQVITI series, see Gert Boersema's article: http://www.oudgeld.com/webbib/translation_codewords.htm

As you can see, there are so many good reasons for collecting Probus coins!

 

 

[Barnaba6]

The auction starts tomorrow. Last chance to register, browse the auction and leave prebids etc.  

[Barnaba6]

My coins will hammer in about 4 hours. Last call. Good luck to everyone and thank you in advance for your participation!

[Barnaba6]

The auction was a huge success. Thanks to everyone who participated. I hope you are happy with the coins won. It's a sad feeling to arrive at the end of the process of selling my Probus collection and no longer be able to enjoy the fun, anticipation and excitement involved with each past auction where my coins were sold (I organized about 15 specialized Probus coins auctions in the last 3 years).

Nevertheless I have decided to leave about 100 Probus coins to myself so I will have some souvenir after my specialized collection.

All the best,

Barnaba            

[Molag Bal]

 I wasn't able to participate after settling my Leu invoice but I won 5 coins at previous sales and am very happy with them. Your collection is spectacular, congratulations on a successful auction! 

 

 

 

[Barnaba6]

@Molag Bal Thanks for your earlier purchases. Nice choices. Happy to hear that your are satisfied with them. All the best.