DDOOUUBBLLEE SSTTRRUUCCKK

[Furryfrog02]

I purchased this Constantius II double strike along with an antoninianus of Trebonianus Gallus partly because I wanted to offset the shipping costs but also because I thought it looked pretty cool. I was thinking it was a Victory reverse but when it came, it was in a flip that said "SPES REIPVBLICAE". I can see the emperor holding the globe...but I still see what looks like a wreath. 
What do you all think? Either way, it is pretty cool!

[panzerman]

I agree with you/ looks more like a wreath.

 

John

[dougsmit]

I don't see a doublestrike but an overstrike that needs to be sorted out to see what was from which strike. 

From this period, I enjoyed the Constantius Gallus (Falling Horseman, Siscia) over left bust Constantius II (Soldier and two captives, Aquilaea).  I do wish the undertype were a little stronger.  I find it helps diagnosing such things by shooting a photo oriented to place the top up for each strike. 

 

I recall you like Victories.  I assume I showed you this Postumus over Postumus with two different Victory type reverses (one and two Victory types).  

 

[Furryfrog02]

I also thought it was an overstrike at first. BUT it was sold as a double strike by people more knowledgeable than me soooo that's what I went with haha. 
I am going to try and decipher some of the legend on the reverse to see if I can figure out what is what. 

You have showed that Postumus before @dougsmit but I don't get tired of seeing it. It is awesome! A real two-for-one coin. 

[dougsmit]

52 minutes ago, Furryfrog02 said:

I also thought it was an overstrike at first. BUT it was sold as a double strike by people more knowledgeable than me soooo that's what I went with haha. 
I am going to try and decipher some of the legend on the reverse to see if I can figure out what is what. 

You have showed that Postumus before @dougsmit but I don't get tired of seeing it. It is awesome! A real two-for-one coin. 

FF02, my friend,  I hate to tell you but I fear you are reaching the point where you will be finding fewer people more knowledgeable than you in every respect.  Many really big name dealers are experts in buying and selling but may be a bit weak in things like the difference between doublestruck and overstruck.  I spent quite a bit of time in the 1990's teaching my betters how to separate the mints in the Eastern Severans but they were vastly more knowledgeable than I in big silver, any gold and how to sell a $100 coin for $500 and make someone think they got a bargain.   

In case there is anyone here not clear on the matter, I copy here the section from my grading page 'Conditions of Manufacture'.  In 1997, I felt the hobby would be better off if more people knew the standard terms for what they were seeing on coins.  Today, there seems to be more important problems in the hobby but it still is easier to communicate if a language is shared.

VG Double Struck Constantius II centenionalis When a flan shifted between blows of the hammer, doubling resulted. Minor doubling is undesirable but extreme examples are collected as mint errors.   F Overstruck Heraclius follis Some coins were struck on older issues often leaving legible parts of the undertype.

VG Flipover doublestrike Claudius II antoninianus Pax rx. Even normal ancient coins show variety that would be considered errors on modern coins but sometimes this can be of an extreme nature. These coins were struck twice flipping over between the two strikes.   F Flipover doublestrike Septimius Severus denarius Mars rx.

F Brockage Septimius Severus denarius If a coin stuck in the reverse die, the next coin struck would show an incuse, reversed design of the obverse   F Clashed dies Julia Domna denarius Venus rx. Dies struck without a blank between could damage a die leaving a incuse design along with the normal for the rest of the life of that die.

https://www.forumancientcoins.com/dougsmith/grade2.html  

[expat]

@dougsmit in your esteemed opinion, what would cause the second images of the long torch and the S on this coin?

Faustina II AE Sestertius. 19,80g, 33mm.
 DIVA FAV-STINA PIA, draped bust right / SIDERIBVS RECEPTA S-C, Faustina as Diana, standing right, holding long torch across body with both hands, crescent behind neck. RIC 1715, Cohen 215. SEAR 1988 # 1530
Commemorative issue struck under Aurelius, circa
175/6 AD.

[KenDorney]

28 minutes ago, expat said:

@dougsmit in your esteemed opinion, what would cause the second images of the long torch and the S on this coin?

That's not a second torch, but her arm.

[Victor_Clark]

 

 

Constantine II GLORIA EXERCITVS maybe Lyon mint (17mm 2.2g) overstruck by an unofficial FEL TEMP REPARATIO fallen horseman maybe copying a Constantinople issue.

[Ed Snible]

Bronze coins of Mithradates the Great were often poorly struck.  Here we see two strikes, each with the obverse so badly off center that the impressions barely overlap.

Pontos, Komana. 85-65 BC. 5.50g AE21
O: 2x aegis with facing Gorgon in the centre.
R: [Κ]OMA-Ν[ΩΝ], Nike advancing right, holding palm over shoulder, monogram to left
Acquired Calgary Coin (Robert Kokotailo)

[kirispupis]

I don't own any double struck coins, but I do have this one that's overstruck. I'd like to think it was struck over an Alexander type of Nikokles after his "stunt" of adding his name to the mane, but we'll never know...

Kings of Macedon. Alexander III ‘the Great’
Tetradrachm Silver, 27 mm, 17.11 g, 12 h
Salamis, struck under Menelaus, circa 315-306
Head of Herakles to right, wearing lion skin headdress.
Rev. AΛEΞANΔPOY Zeus seated left on low throne, holding long scepter in his left hand and eagle standing right with closed wings in his right; to left, monogram and rudder; below throne, monogram of ΠE.
Price 3165. Light marks and with traces of overstriking

[Curtis JJ]

Here is a flip-over double-struck bronze from Olympia, Elis c. 220-191 BCE. (Unfortunately not one of the types that can be dated to some particular Olympic Games.)

You can see part of the reverse legend ("F") and Zeus' "hurling arm" on Apollo's head around 11-12 o'clock, which looks a bit like an odd headdress.
(It looks like you can see a bit of the outline of the head/neck truncation of Apollo on the reverse.)

(Off-topic, but if anyone happens to know of a Greek coin dealer with initials "DGP," operating in Greece mid-1970s, I'd like to know! A few other such tags are documented. I haven't tried asking the collector who wrote them.)

 

A couple of double-struck AE3s of Constantine II and Julian II. Both (and some neat little brockages) came in a group lot from the Martin Wettmark error collection, a Swedish collector of world error coinage who sold his ancients at CNG in 2022:

   

Double-strike aside, the Constantine II is a scarce (rare, I guess?) type with obverse legend: CONSTANTINVS VM AVG. (Instead of IVN.) (RIC VIII Heraclea 17, Sear 17435.) Apparently there are a couple of possibilities for the meaning of VM (e.g., Veneranda Memoria), and it could indicate a posthumous Constantine I (VICTOR MAXIMUS). (Thanks to comments from others on CT and FAC.)

For the Julian II, the exergue mintmark is vertical instead of horizontal. (Apparently the Є control in the left field is an unlisted var. of RIC VIII 190 [Thess.], per Helvetica's FEL TEMPS, see DK FT1139, but I haven't double-checked everything yet. Of course, the double-strike can make it hard to confirm very narrow classifications like that.)

 

I'm still not quite sure I understand how two pairs of rows are angled in different directions on this Byzantine Anonymous follis. (From the same group lot as prev. two.) I don't see any signs of double-striking on the obverse, but what else could be going on?

Should be +IhSUS/ XRISTUS/bASILEU/bASILE in four lines. The b's look like I's, which is confusing enough. To make it stranger, the start of a third "diagonal line" (beginning "b" for "bASILEU") is slightly visible, but doesn't look like it's from the same die as the "straight line" third-line, "bASILEU." (I know I don't understand because I don't even know how to talk about it in a way that makes sense!)

 

All this, of course, is a completely separate issue from "The Method of Striking Scyphate Coins Using Two Obverse Dies" described by Simon Bendall in his 1978 Numismatic Chronicle article [https://www.jstor.org/stable/42666638]. I'm not sure how widespread the practice is, or certain I have any relevant ones, but you can see a few apparent examples described by CNG with reference to the article here: https://www.acsearch.info/search.html?term=bendall+two+dies+scyphate&category=1

Edited January 20 by Curtis JJ

[Al Kowsky]

I posted this coin recently in a CPK thread.

By taking the reverse image & rotating it 90 degrees CCW you can see elements of the obverse design at 11:00 & 5:00 O'clock. 

[dougsmit]

On 1/19/2024 at 2:31 PM, expat said:

@dougsmit in your esteemed opinion, what would cause the second images of the long torch and the S on this coin?

Faustina II AE Sestertius. 19,80g, 33mm.
 DIVA FAV-STINA PIA, draped bust right / SIDERIBVS RECEPTA S-C, Faustina as Diana, standing right, holding long torch across body with both hands, crescent behind neck. RIC 1715, Cohen 215. SEAR 1988 # 1530
Commemorative issue struck under Aurelius, circa
175/6 AD.

I see this as a doublestrike on the reverse where the coin never left the obverse die but the reverse die 'bounced' up and came down in a slightly different orientation. 

[dougsmit]

Since this thread has continued and with apologies to the most people here who have seen them over and over again.  I only have so many coins worth showing so they continue to come up.  Since I am no longer buying coins, this will not get better. 

My 'best' double strike is the Magnentius which was first a brockage (one normal and one incuse reverse) then flipped over and struck again with the same die pair.   I would love to see other examples of this 'situation'.

 

My 'best' overstrike is this as of Gordian III overstruck 7-800 years later by a Byzantine Anonymous follis.  Again, I would love to see other examples showing great time between strikes.  

 

On my 'bucket list' is to find a proper home for these two coins when I have passed.  That is not sold to the highest bidder.  

[Curtis JJ]

1 hour ago, dougsmit said:

the Magnentius which was first a brockage (one normal and one incuse reverse) then flipped over and struck again with the same die pair.   I would love to see other examples of this 'situation'.

Since first seeing that coin, I've kept an eye out for any others. But haven't found any that I was certain qualified. Searching those keywords in ACSearch, a few examples come back (including a few identified by NGC as "overstruck brockage," which do look convincing with a quick look).

Others, though, are clearly dramatic clashed dies:

This example is NOT mine, but was sold by two different major firms as "overstruck on a brockage" (2022, 2018).

 

My coin & at least one other example, prove it is a die-clash, struck from the same dies. (And @Marsyas Mike shared a specimen on CT -- better than mine -- when I showed this one.)

Additionally, an interesting coincidence happened with this particular die-clash though: The "O" in the obverse ANTONINVS lined up almost perfectly with the "O" in COS III. Consequently, on my coin (and especially on MM's), on the right side of the reverse, ANTONINVS appears almost totally incuse -- except for the "O" which still appears in relief (rather than an incuse ring with raised dot as one would expect)!

That was quite confusing to me until I found the better-preserved specimen and actually lined up the images.

 

Since brockages have come up, here's my most recently added one.

I'm not sure how much heavier it was at the time of striking, but at under 10mm and 0.43g, this is the smallest, lightest brockage I've been able to find any record of, save a couple lighter (but broader) Byzantine "cup coins." (In general, scyphate brockages seem to have happened much more frequently than on "flat coinage.")

Edited January 22 by Curtis JJ

[Furryfrog02]

20 hours ago, dougsmit said:

Since this thread has continued and with apologies to the most people here who have seen them over and over again.  I only have so many coins worth showing so they continue to come up.  Since I am no longer buying coins, this will not get better. 

My 'best' double strike is the Magnentius which was first a brockage (one normal and one incuse reverse) then flipped over and struck again with the same die pair.   I would love to see other examples of this 'situation'.

 

My 'best' overstrike is this as of Gordian III overstruck 7-800 years later by a Byzantine Anonymous follis.  Again, I would love to see other examples showing great time between strikes.  

 

On my 'bucket list' is to find a proper home for these two coins when I have passed.  That is not sold to the highest bidder.  

That Gordian III on the Anonymous follis is wild. You've shared it before but I can't see anything wrong with that. I wonder if it was sitting around in someone's savings and passed down before finally being restruck using "modern day dies"? Or could it have been sitting in a hoard that was long lost and re-found and re-purposed? The bust of Gordian III is not very worn for what could be ~700-800 years of circulation so I think it definitely had to have sat somewhere for a very long time.

[Furryfrog02]

@dougsmit The longest period of time between strikes I have are these two:

Follis of Basil I & Constantine VII overstruck on Theophilus
Originally struck ~830 AD at the earliest
Secondary strike ending ~ 876 AD at the latest
Longest possible time between strikes: roughly 46 years. 

 

Follis of Constantine VIII overstruck on Romanus I
Originally struck ~913 AD at the earliest
Secondary strike ending ~ 1028 AD at the latest
Longest possible time between strikes: roughly 115 years.

 

Both pale in comparison to your Gordian III but are still pretty lengthy. 
Who knows: Perhaps our two coins were in the same hoard before being recycled through the mint system and restruck on Anonymous folles 🙂

 

[Finn235]

I tend to grab any double struck Indo Sassanian coins that I see - it did happen with some frequency

Flipped over and rotated 90°

Rotated

Obverse shifted up, reverse rotated 90°

Double struck obverse, reverse shifted slightly

I think this one might have been struck 3 times before they gave up? I see 3 separate eyes

Rotated

Dramatic obverse double strike! Reverse unaffected

 

This one has puzzled me - I can't tell what happened to the obverse die here? Either Sri Ma or Proto Sri Vigra...

[Curtis JJ]

If we're lucky, maybe someone here will show an example or two of late Roman bronze coins that were countermarked and used again as a currency by a certain European kingdom in roughly the 1600s! ... Those are my favorite example of the extremely-long-term use of ancient coins (albeit presumably interrupted underground for a millennium or so before being rediscovered & reused).

I'll comment again below with my longest...

 

4 hours ago, Furryfrog02 said:

. I wonder if it was sitting around in someone's savings and passed down before finally being restruck using "modern day dies"? Or could it have been sitting in a hoard that was long lost and re-found and re-purposed?

I usually figure that coins like that were dug up -- maybe hoards, maybe just stray surface finds. There are lots of reports of ancient coins being dug up and used again as currency in the medieval and even early modern period! In fact, there are enough reports for bibliographies to have been written on the topic.

Poland alone has been the source of dozens of such hoards (mainly Roman AR), then used again as currency, decorations, bullion, and for religious purposes -- sometimes in the last couple centuries! (See book review: Barbara Zając (2021), in Notae Numismaticae-Zapiski Numizmatyczne XVI, 333-8: “Review: MATEUSZ BOGUCKI, ARKADIUSZ DYMOWSKI, GRZEGORZ ŚNIEŻKO (eds.) Slivers of Antiquity. The Use of Ancient Coins in Central, Eastern and Northern Europe in the Medieval and Modern Periods / Okruchy Starożytności...”)

Edited January 23 by Curtis JJ

[Furryfrog02]

8 minutes ago, Curtis JJ said:

If we're lucky, maybe someone here will show an example or two of late Roman bronze coins that were countermarked and used again as a currency by a certain European kingdom in roughly the 1600s! ... Those are my favorite example of the extremely-long-term use of ancient coins (albeit presumably interrupted underground for a millennium or so before being rediscovered & reused).

I had never heard of this. A quick search pulled up @Victor_Clark's awesome page with a couple of examples. That is so cool!

[Curtis JJ]

For this coin, the length of time between two strikes is not so impressive: 100 years. But we can know about three important periods in the "object biography" of these particular types:

1. struck in Constantinople under Anastasius;
2. brought to Sicily w/ Belisarius under Justinian;
3. restruck under the founder of yet another great Dynasty, the Heraclian;
4. (then its "modern object biography").

Originally this was one Anastasius' large AE Folles from Constantinople, 498-518 (Sear Byz 19). The Dumbarton Oaks Catalogue (II.1: 352, no. 241) suggests that these "had probably entered Sicily in large numbers with Belisarius’ troops in 535 and never been withdrawn."

It is worth noting the "host coins" or "under-types" (depending on whether consider them countermarks or overstrikes) are usually heavily worn (even when the later strike isn't). They certainly look like coins that circulated for a century or more.

Finally, recalled or gathered up, more than a century later. Restruck by Heraclius in 620 CE (Sear Byz 882, this coin illustrated).

(The story of this specimen then goes cold for the next 1,350+ years, at which point it appears in David Sear's Byzantine Coins and Their Values.)

 

 

Two more of my favorite overstrikes:

By the way -- a really cool resource that I used/linked for the second coin below, but of very general use: the Greek Overstrikes Database by F Callatay et al. = https://silver.knowledge.wiki/Overstrike_Database

 

I like this coin for the historical context:

Judaea had rebelled and been crushed by the Flavians (Vespasian and Titus) around 70 CE. Over sixty years later they rebelled again under Hadrian -- the Bar Kochba Rebellion. One of the important functions of the new state would be to strike its own coins rather than continuing to use those of the Roman state -- whose designs also often happened to be highly insulting and deliberately humiliating to the local population.

The solution? Overstriking!

On the specimen below, we can still see a very clear image of Titus. I was able to make a die-match to the obverse of RPC II 2285, no. 7 (J. Galst Coll.), which was actually a Provincial bronze "Judaea Capta" type (commemorating the defeat of Judaea in 70).

What better symbol of the rebellion?!

Judaea, Bar Kochba Rebellion AE Middle Bronze (25mm, 9.88 g, 6h; undertype Agrippa II – Titus [87/8 CE]), 133/4 CE.
Ref/Prov: Hendin Ancient Jewish Coins (1976), 160A = Guide to Biblical Coins (2^nd ed., 1987), 160a (this coin illustrated),
ex David Hendin Collection (w/ his tag)

 

The under-type. Specimen below is NOT MY COIN (top right panel shows my specimen, die-match to the Titus portrait of coin below). 
A Judaea Capta commemorative bronze struck under Agrippa II for Titus, RPC II 2285 (specimen 7 & primary illustration):

 

 

I love the one below because the combination of under-type and over-type created a new design:
- Apollo helmeted (he kept Athena's helmet!)
- Lyre/kithara with a frame constructed out of two dolphins!

When I showed it on a previous post here, I included a photo of the under-type so it's easier to see how it came to look this way.

Adranon Mercenaries near Aetna AE Drachm (30mm, 26.11 g), c. 4th century.
Obv: Head of Apollo (struck over helmeted head of Athena).
Rev: Lyre (struck over a star and pair of dolphins).
Ref/Prov: This coin = Virzi 512 = Calciati CNS III 2 st 4/5
= A. Campana CNAI (PN 98, 1996) 1.A (this coin cited on p. 35) = Greek Overstrikes Database (G.O.D.) 19640.

Edited January 23 by Curtis JJ

[Victor_Clark]

 

Since these were mentioned and I love trotting them out for show; I have two bronze coins countermarked as 4 maravedis (crown over IIII) in the 1600's

 

 

Gallienus
A.D. 260- 268
Ӕ Antoninianus
20x21mm    3.0g
GALLIENVS AVG; radiate head right.
SECVRIT PERPET; Securitas standing facing, head left, leaning on column to right and holding scepter H in right field.
RIC IV Rome 280
 

 

 

Constantine I
A.D. 312- 313
22mm   4.1g
IMP CONSTANTINVS P F AVG laureate, draped, seen from the rear. 
SPQR OPTIMO PRINCIP; Legionary eagle between two vexilla, that on left surmounted by a right hand, that on right by a wreath; flag on the eagle.
in ex R S    
RIC VI Rome 348
 

 

 

Edited January 23 by Victor_Clark