Late Roman Bronze Coins
Coin talk => Vandal and Ostrogothic coins => Topic started by: seth on January 13, 2014, 01:53:29 PM
This coin ended at 242.50$.
I did not see another one, so this might be the legendary nummus of Eraric that numismatists interested in Ostrogothic coinage see as a holy grail.
I saw this for sale, but I thought that it did not look right. The letters for the legend are too thin and the bust is very unusual and the border is odd and the flan is different from the usual Ostrogoth coinage. Not much is known of Eraric, as at most he only ruled for a few months in A.D. 541. This is long enough to have minted coins, but Wroth in his catalogue of the BM collection says that Eraric "apparently did not issue coins."
For comparison, below is a coin of Witigis, who ruled until A.D. 540, so only a very short time before this Eraric coin would have been struck in A.D. 541, so you would expect the styles to have been much closer.
The next picture is a coin of Baduila who began rule after Eraric. Once again, the style of this coin bears little similarity to the Eraric one.
Thanks for the insight. I am not a collector of Ostrogoth coinage but I would have bought this one, even if just for study.
As far as I have seen post-roman coinage is highly irregular so this coin is not really impossible.
Alas it went higher than I was willing to pay for something I don't actively collect.
Now I understand what you meant. The same seller has now this one on auction:
Quote from: seth on January 20, 2014, 09:58:29 AM
Now I understand what you meant. The same seller has now this one on auction:
Yes, that one looks pretty awful also.
Quote from: seth on January 20, 2014, 09:58:29 AM
The same seller has now this one on auction:
It sold for $224.50.
This coin is a fake, this seller has been sold some similar fakes, with the same style