Buttrey Spintriae plate error

[Heliodromus]

Some fake Spintriae listed on eBay Spain just caught my eye - the usual fake "complete type set", but artificially patinated and looking much better for it.

I'd never paid attention to these fakes before, but one of them caught my eye as being unusual - not depicted in Ted Buttrey's "The Spintriae as a Historical Source"  (NC 13, 1973). However, going down the rabbit hole, it turns out this is because one of Buttrey's plates has an error and his type 10 examplar (which looks confusing, as many poor specimens do - all failing arms and legs 🙂), is really a type 11 specimen.

Buttrey is too coy to actually describe the scenes depicted, but does note the sources for his types, with type 10 seen only from a single specimen in the British Museum, which happily is on their web site, although with a somewhat poor photo. The fake specimen of this apparently unique coin is much clearer!

Here's Buttrey's plate.

And the BM coin - the real type 10 (which the BM confirms in their description). Interestingly the number 9 is rendered as IIIIV, unlike other Spintriae where the roman numerals are all as expected.

And the modern fake.

It seems to be a case where the fake is almost better than the real thing.

The fake set of Spintriae that this belongs too (multiple sets on eBay) is remarkably well researched  - comprising an almost complete set of the Buttrey types, including this type 10 which seems to only be known from the BM specimen, as well as another type that was unknown to Buttrey but has since appeared on the market.