★ A Fascinating Unknown ★

ROMAN EMPIRE. Augustus(?).
Silver Denarius, circa late 1st Century BC. Uncertain mint (in Spain?).
Brockage. Obv: [...]TVS CAESAR, bare head right. Rev: incuse of obverse.

About Extremely Fine; a fascinating and elusive coin with many discussion points.

Piecing the fraction of the legend on the 'obverse' of this coin - seemingly VSTVS, but definitely TVS - with the fraction on the 'reverse' - CΛESAR (reading backwards) - we find the likely legend CAESAR AVGVSTVS, that is, a legend of the mature Augustus. However, the coin's portrait is an unusual one, not like the refined and somewhat standardised images we typically expect of the man in this period. Rather, it is more akin to the portraits of the youthful Octavian minted in less certain times and in less regularised mints. Indeed, the brockage striking of this coin, and at a die-axis that is highly unusual for such a strike (we may more typically expect 12h), would further imply its production within an irregular mint.

What this cataloguer would tentatively suggest, then, is that this coin was minted early in the reign of Augustus, before the wide standardisation of his portraiture, and in a provincial mint, perhaps one in Spain.

Die Axis: 7h.
Diameter: 17 mm.
Weight: 3.55 g.