a wild Constantius I portrait

[Nerosmyfavorite68]

I shopped at Numiscorner for one of Mom's birthday presents, a Louix XIV medal.  I know nothing about these and I shopped around for the oldest restrike I could find.  So, I guess I'll have to take the dealer's word on it being an 18th c. restrike.  It's an attractive coin.

I alwo threw in a couple of coins for myself. 

 

France, Medal, Louis XIV, Les Revues Militaires, History, 1665, Mauger - 18th c restrike

The coin isn't as dark in person, yet it's a very impressive piece.

An attractive, if mundane, Constantius I

RIC 164a, Lugdunum, 27mm, no weight given.  F+, silvering.  Pretty attractive in hand.

The prices of Numiscorner are all over the place. A piece of crud (ugly) Constantius II AE 3 was 30 Euros, yet this attractive coin was around $40.

 

The star of the show is a Constantius I with a bizarre portrait.  I wanted to sing, "Inka dink a dink, a dinka doo, what a morning" after seing it.  "Everybody wants to get into the act!"  Jimmy Durante's long-lost relative?

Constantius I (Caesar) - AE Nummus - London - RIC 22, 27mm, 9.08g  F+.

This one's not all that attractive, yet it was a tad more expensive than the nice one.

Feel free to post any medals of Louis XIV, or any coins of Constantius I.

[ambr0zie]

That's a serious honker there on the last coin. 

Probably to suggest that Constantius's ancestors were Nerva? Or perhaps Faustina II, as I recently grabbed a nice denarius with a similar honker?

I have 2 Constantius I coins, one from my very first lot 

26,2 mm, 11,13 g.
Constantius I, as Caesar under Maximianus 293-305. Æ nummus. Treveri. 298-299.
FL VAL CONSTANTIVS NOB C, laureate bust left / GENIO POPVLI ROMANI, Genius, towered and nude to waist, standing facing, head turned left, holding cornucopiae with his left hand, patera in his right hand; B (A?) - gamma across fields, TR in exergue.
RIC VI Treveri 196.

And a Divus. Recent acquisition. Before I saw it I had no idea he was deified on coins. 

20,8 mm, 3 g.
Divus Constantius I. Died 306. Ӕ follis. Rome. Struck under Constantine I. 317-318.
DIVO CONSTANTIO PIO PRINCIPI, laureate and veiled head of Divus Constantius I to right / REQVIES OPTIMOR MERIT, Constantius Chlorus, veiled, draped, seated left in curule chair, raising right hand and holding short sceptre in left hand. Mintmark RP.
RIC VII Rome 105.

[Hrefn]

His defied and nasal self.  

[Nerosmyfavorite68]

Interesting. Maybe mine  wasn't done by a terrible engraver?

Edited September 30, 2023 by Nerosmyfavorite68

[Hrefn]

5 minutes ago, Nerosmyfavorite68 said:

Interesting. Maybe mine  wasn't done by a terrible engraver?

Constantius died in Britain, where this coin was minted (London).  I have long believed the engraver could well have seen the emperor in the flesh and produced this remarkable portrait.  I suspect it is more true to life than those coins which make Constantius resemble a clone of Diocletian.  

[CPK]

Haha! I do remember seeing that one. In fact, I think I had it on my watch list. Congrats on the very interesting portrait coin!

Also, that medal is beautiful! I love the perspective on the reverse.

[Steppenfool]

It's probably more true to life than the generic and heavily stylised Tetrarchic portrait styles as @Hrefn said. Here's a side profile of a bust attributed to him.

 

[maridvnvm]

Here is a Maximianus Herculius that is very similar in sty;e for the Constantius coin. So close that you could believe them by the same hand.

Maximianus Herculius Follis

Obv:– IMP C MAXIMIANVS P F AVG, Laureate, cuirassed bust right
Rev:– GENIO POPVLI ROMANI, Genius standing left, modius on head, naked but for chlamys over left shoulder, left hand holding cornucopiae and right hand holding patera
Minted in Lugdunum (B | _ //PL). A.D. 296
Reference:– RIC VI Lugdunum - (RIC 43 var officina not listed in RIC). Bastien XI 63 ii (2)

Yet this coin of Constantius ftom the same issue is quite different, with amore pronounced nose

 

 

[Nerosmyfavorite68]

The top one has an especially nice portrait.

I'm not all that great about picking out unsigned mints of the post Aurelianic Ants, but I can spot Lugdunum.  It's the forehead that's the giveaway.

[Al Kowsky]

Constantius I is alive & well 😂!  Does anyone recognize this well known actor 🤔?

[Constantivs]

29mm large follis

[maridvnvm]

He was depicted quite differently across different in different periods. I have never actively collected him but seem to have owned quite a few over the years. But with many his nose is not prominent in the design.

Cyzicus - no

Alexandria - a typical near straight line nose

London has a huge range of noses....

Trier - nothing of note

Lugdunum - they all became stylistically identical

until he was deified

 

[Nerosmyfavorite68]

Very interesting.  Your London middle one resembles mine.  The bottom one resembles Carausius.

[Heliodromus]

16 hours ago, Al Kowsky said:

Does anyone recognize this well known actor 🤔?

Adrien Brody (thanks to Google image search).

 

[madhatter]

3 hours ago, Nerosmyfavorite68 said:

Very interesting.  Your London middle one resembles mine.  The bottom one resembles Carausius.

My big London nose. Not in the best shape but still 🤩

Edited October 1, 2023 by madhatter

[DonnaML]

I'm afraid that my only Constantius I, from Heraclea, has a very ordinary nose (on the small side, if anything) in this very generic portrait:

Constantius I Chlorus Caesar (father of Constantine I), Billon Follis, 296-297 AD, Heraclea Mint (3rd Officina). Obv. Laureate head right, FL VAL CONSTANTIVS NOB CAES / Rev. Genius wearing modius on head, standing left, nude, chlamys draped over left shoulder, holding cornucopiae in left hand and pouring libation from patera in right hand, GENIO POPV-L-I ROMANI; mintmark HT Γ[gamma] [Γ= 3rd Officina] in exergue. RIC VI Heraclea 18a (p. 531), Sear RCV IV 14061.  29 mm., 9.91 g. 

[DonnaML]

On 9/30/2023 at 9:38 AM, Nerosmyfavorite68 said:

France, Medal, Louis XIV, Les Revues Militaires, History, 1665, Mauger - 18th c restrike

I'm no expert on Louis XIV medals, but your beautiful example does look like a very old restrike to me. (The distinction between original strikes and restrikes is apparently not of major significance to most European collectors, because even the restrikes were struck from the original dies in the possession of the Paris mint.) FYI, your medal is No. 85 in the standard modern reference work for Louis XIV medals, Jean-Paul Divo's Catalogue des Médailles de Louis XIV (Spink, Zurich 1982) at p. 40 (ill. at same page). The obverse is by Jean Mauger, like almost all Louis XIV medals (it's the 6th out of 10 portraits covering childhood through old age), and the reverse is by Thomas Bernard (unsigned). According to the description in the catalogue, the reverse depicts the King himself on the right, commanding "une rangée de mousquetaires." The catalogue number 85 follows, and is the same as, the number in the original catalogue, Médailles sur les principaux évènements du règne de Louis le Grand. Par l'Académie Royale des médailles et des inscriptions (Paris 1702).

I have only three Louis XIV medals myself (unfortunately not yet photographed even though I've had them for almost 25 years!), and -- by contrast to British medals and Napoleonic medals -- have never actively collected them. In my opinion, many of the reverses are not terribly interesting, and the heavily classical designs often don't bear much obvious connection to the battles and other events they're intended to portray. That's definitely not true of yours, which I like very much.

Edited October 1, 2023 by DonnaML

[Steppenfool]

The Rome Mint produced quite a lifelike nose.

 

[Nerosmyfavorite68]

1 hour ago, DonnaML said:

I'm no expert on Louis XIV medals, but your beautiful example does look like a very old restrike to me. (The distinction between original strikes and restrikes is apparently not of major significance to most European collectors, because even the restrikes were struck from the original dies in the possession of the Paris mint.) FYI, your medal is No. 85 in the standard modern reference work for Louis XIV medals, Jean-Paul Divo's Catalogue des Médailles de Louis XIV (Spink, Zurich 1982) at p. 40 (ill. at same page). The obverse is by Jean Mauger, like almost all Louis XIV medals (it's the 6th out of 10 portraits covering childhood through old age), and the reverse is by Thomas Bernard (unsigned). According to the description in the catalogue, the reverse depicts the King himself on the right, commanding "une rangée de mousquetaires." The catalogue number 85 follows, and is the same as, the number in the original catalogue, Médailles sur les principaux évènements du règne de Louis le Grand. Par l'Académie Royale des médailles et des inscriptions (Paris 1702).

I have only three Louis XIV medals myself (unfortunately not yet photographed even though I've had them for almost 25 years!), and -- by contrast to British medals and Napoleonic medals -- have never actively collected them. In my opinion, many of the reverses are not terribly interesting, and the heavily classical designs often don't bear much obvious connection to the battles and other events they're intended to portray. That's definitely not true of yours, which I like very much.

Thanks much!  I nearly missed seeing your reply!

My mother is not a collector.  However, she expressed an interest in the coinage of the time.  This will be one of her birthday presents.

Of the ones I looked at, this one stood out because of the reverse and being the only one of the lot which Numiscorner had notes on (the old overstrike), I chose this one.

One of the downsides of Numiscorner's vcoins page is that the descriptions are rather terse and lacking, mostly being stuffed into the tables they made.  Numiscorner's website seems to have more description. I tried finding the Constantius I nummus missing the weight on the website (by searching for the number), to no avail.

It's not quite as toned as the picture, but it's an attractive coin. 

[Qcumbor]

At Trier mint they thought he needed nose and chin 

Q