Julia Domna As/Dupondius - 3.6 Grams. Limes? Phony?

[Marsyas Mike]

So another spectacular rarity (har) from eBay came my way.  Seller took decent photos, but no indication of size.  An As issued for Julia Domna with Diana in a biga on the reverse - an interesting, desirable type.  Bidding was ferocious and I got it for $4.74 (plus shipping). 

Seller shipped quickly (from Canada) and I ripped open the envelope like Ralphie on Christmas morning, only to find the thing was, in the words of Monty Python, "wafer thin" - at 22 mm it was somewhat small for the type, but the weight - 3.13 grams is way too light to be a plausible as, even during the Severan era.  Not even close.  Here it is: 

It doesn't look too bad - and the hints of metal under the patina look very much like brass - so a grossly underweight dupondius to boot?  Fake, I said to myself, sadly.  

Normally I wouldn't pester the Forum with junk like this, but here's the weird thing - looking (without much hope) on acsearch, I found three - yes, three - die-matches for this coin, all freakishly light weight.  I'm a scrounger, I admit it, but these auction houses are supposed to be experts. 

Naumann:  "very light specimen" https://www.acsearch.info/search.html?id=10412707

Roma:  no comment, but Israel export noted:  https://www.acsearch.info/search.html?id=5576800 and (same coin) https://www.acsearch.info/search.html?id=6973747

Paul-Francis Jacquier:  "Sehr schön Zu ähnlichen Gußprägungen (Limesfalsa) aus der Severer-Zeit vgl. Jacquier 31, 2003, 316 (As des Caracalla) sowie Jacquier 23, 1999, 506 (As des Geta). Es scheinen nur Limesfalsa gallischer Herkunft bekannt zu sein" (translation:  "Very nice For similar cast coins (limesfalsa) from the Severan period, see Jacquier 31, 2003, 316 (As of Caracalla) as well Jacquier 23, 1999, 506 (As des Geta). Only Limesfalsa of Gallic origin seem to be known."

https://www.acsearch.info/search.html?id=2120661 and https://www.acsearch.info/search.html?id=1670048

Here's comparison photos - die-matches, but they don't look like mass-produced modern cast fakes, based on flan centering, ancient crud, etc.  The die-work is quite good, in my opinion - I especially like the horses.  And if you were faking these nowadays for the collector market, why not boost the weight and make them plausible? 

 

Any thoughts?  Any Severan experts out there aware of this sort of thing?  I always thought limes were exclusively silver, but there were a ton of Claudius AE imitations minted in Gaul in the first century.  Did this happen again, as Jacquier suggests, in Severian-era Gaul?  Are these supposed to be quadrans?  Please share.  

Edited December 18, 2023 by Marsyas Mike
Typo

[John Conduitt]

Four underweight double die matches? 

[JayAg47]

Given there are die-matches, and the light brassy feel, it looks to be a limes issue.

My Elagabalus is also a limes denarius, and after some light cleaning the brass revealed itself. (I know some like the patina, but I was curious to see if the coin was a billon or just brass).

Moreover, there are so many double-die matches to my coin, sold from various auction houses and on Vcoins. I see a lot of limes issue from the Severan era than from any other period, any reasons why?!

 

Edited December 18, 2023 by JayAg47

[Roman Collector]

I'm hoping that @dougsmit comes in and offers his opinion. 

 

[Marsyas Mike]

12 minutes ago, Roman Collector said:

I'm hoping that @dougsmit comes in and offers his opinion. 

 

Me too!

[Marsyas Mike]

1 hour ago, JayAg47 said:

Given there are die-matches, and the light brassy feel, it looks to be a limes issue.

My Elagabalus is also a limes denarius, and after some light cleaning the brass revealed itself. (I know some like the patina, but I was curious to see if the coin was a billon or just brass).

Moreover, there are so many double-die matches to my coin, sold from various auction houses and on Vcoins. I see a lot of limes issue from the Severan era than from any other period, any reasons why?!

 

Thanks for sharing those, @JayAg47.  I have a few Severan limes - all "silver" though.  Here's my favorite - a posthumous Sept. Severus:

 

[dougsmit]

On 12/17/2023 at 8:27 PM, Roman Collector said:

I'm hoping that @dougsmit comes in and offers his opinion. 

 

The old term for underweight, unofficial, AE coins was 'Cast in Gaul'.  I found it odd that more of them were 'better' reverses than the average for full weight coins but when I was studying coins, no one took unofficial coins seriously and those of us who admitted any into our collections were considered fools.  I know no more today than I did when I got what I have forty years ago.  If I were buying coins today, I doubt I would be buying more.  They are a part of what we study but exactly what part is something I do not claim to understand.  I believe they are ancient but I can prove nothing. The easy answer for professional scholars is to ignore everything they do not understand. 

[maridvnvm]

That's about all I have to suggest too. I have a couple of lightweight middle bronze casts but they are not something I chase after. There is too much uncertainty about them for me....

I have it as "potentially cast in Gaul"

[Ancient Coin Hunter]

Hmmm....a very weird occurrence. I would have guessed fake but the preponderance of die matches militates against this conclusion. It doesn't scream fake, either. So I kind of agree with the limes "denarius" hypothesis. In that case, you got a rarity for less than a Big Mac at McDonald's.

I also hope Doug weighs in on the discussion.

Edited December 19, 2023 by Ancient Coin Hunter

[maridvnvm]

Not a limes denarius but a limes falsa....???

[John Conduitt]

On 12/17/2023 at 11:27 PM, Marsyas Mike said:

there were a ton of Claudius AE imitations minted in Gaul in the first century

This was, I think, local mints trying to fulfil a need not being met by Rome, either unofficially or semi-officially, but in any case without Rome taking action to stop it. The Romans conquered Britain at that time and quickly stopped the locals producing their own coins, but didn't provide enough to replace them. Claudius imitations were common in Britain. The coins from Rome were slugs so they countermarked them. They even countermarked imitations to make them official. That happened in Gaul and Hispania too.

In Hadrian and Antoninus Pius's time, Rome decided to produce lots of bronzes specifically for Britain ('coins of British association') to meet the need and the imitations reduced.

That supply doesn't seem to have continued into the Severan dynasty. The locals started to produce cast and plated copies - presumably because now they wanted denarii - to fill the gap. Whether those were sanctioned by Rome or not is perhaps unimportant, as they again didn't stop them (and didn't provide enough replacements anyway).

Caracalla Contemporary Counterfeit Denarius, 198-217

Imitating Rome. Silver-plated bronze, 2.74g. Laureate, draped and cuirassed right, seen from behind; ANTONINVS - PIVS AVG. Pietas standing left at altar, raising both arms; PIETAS PVBLICA. The reverse is typical of Julia Domna’s coins from 198-200. Found near Andover, Hampshire in 2019. Portable Antiquities Scheme: CAM-C08C4B.

Elagabalus Contemporary Cast Imitation Denarius, 218-220

Imitating Rome. Base metal, 18mm, 1.90g. Laureate, horned, draped bust right; IMP ANTONINVS PIVS AVG. Elagabalus, in Syrian priestly robes, standing left, sacrificing out of patera in right hand over tripod, holding club in left hand; behind tripod, bull lying down; star in field to left, erased star in field to right?; INVICTVS SACERDOS AVG (RIC IV, 88b). Found in the UK.

The supply from Rome seems to have picked up again under Philip I and Gallienus, and then under the Gallic Empire, but when that collapsed Britain and Gaul produced more imitations than ever before, albeit crude, small bronzes rather than cast or plated coins. That continued until the first few years of Carausius, the coins from which time might be imitations, or semi-official, or official, but no-one can tell the difference.
 

5 hours ago, Ancient Coin Hunter said:

I would have guessed fake but the preponderance of die matches militates against this conclusion.

I would have thought so many die matches would make it more likely they were modern fakes? The ancient forgers didn't have the efficiency of a centralised mint to produce hundreds of thousands of identical coins. I rarely see two imitations that look even similar. But as I've said, the 'limes' areas went through several cycles of producing imitations and each was different, so anything is possible.

Edited December 19, 2023 by John Conduitt

[Marsyas Mike]

Thank you @John Conduitt @dougsmit @maridvnvm @Ancient Coin Hunter for weighing in on this topic - it is good to see those other AE examples.  

It certainly isn't an area I actively collect - I just go for cheap unusual stuff and hope I learn something along the way.  

41 minutes ago, John Conduitt said:

I would have thought so many die matches would make it more likely they were modern fakes?

Yeah, I wondered that too - sometimes finding a lot of die-matches is not necessarily a good thing, especially for a coin that (whatever it is) is going to be "unofficial" even if it is ancient.  As with so many things, I'll never know.  

[Marsyas Mike]

Poking around a bit more on this, I found the British Museum has one of these at 4.84 grams - pretty light for an as/dupondius.  I don't think it is a die-match to mine, but it is similar-looking, I think:

https://www.britishmuseum.org/collection/object/C_R-3672