Nomos 18

Postumus, Romano-Gallic Emperor, 260-269. Double Sestertius (Orichalcum, 34 mm, 19.72 g, 6 h), Cologne, 261. IMP C M CASS LAT POSTVMVS P F AVG Radiate, helmeted, draped and cuirassed bust of Postumus to right, with a carefully trimmed beard. Rev. VIRTV - S AVG Cuirassed bust of Virtus to left, with a carefully trimmed beard, features similar to those of Postumus himself, and a crested helmet with its bowl ornamented with tendrils, holding short spear over his right shoulder and with a shield over his left. Bastien, Bustes, pl. 110, 2 = Bastien, Postume, 106 (but struck from dies differing from the present piece) = Cohen 436. RIC 183 (cited from Cohen 436). Thys (Jacquier 42, 2016) -. Cf. the double sestertius that appeared as lot 193 in Numismatica Genevensis SA 6, 2010 (as Bastien 107). Of great rarity, apparently only the second known example of this type. Bearing portraits of Postumus of exceptionally fine quality, surely engraved by a die cutter who also worked the emperor's gold coinage. Some minor pitting, smoothing in the fields and around the letters of the legend, otherwise, good very fine.

From the Bendlerblock collection, apparently once on the Spanish market, and from an old collection formed in Spain.

Postumus produced a surprisingly large coinage, which was primarily, if not entirely struck in Cologne (some scholars also postulate a mint in Trier). The dies used to produce these coins were often very well made, especially those used for gold issues (often used to produce strikes in billon as well: the 'so-called' denarii), as well as those intended for the more widespread billon antoniniani. However, the dies used for double sestertii, sestertii and aes fractions are highly variable in quality. While some dies, like those used here, can be remarkably fine - the quality of the two here is high enough for them to be termed medallic -, most, especially the reverses, are fairly awful. The present coin belongs to a very small series of double sestertii and sestertii - Bastien 106-115 - which are of especially fine workmanship, though this piece simply has to be the finest of them all. In fact, very good parallels for the dies used for this coin are on the contemporary gold issues of Postumus: see Schulte O8 and R12 (helmeted heads with very similar decoration on the bowl); as well as R18-19 (radiate and cuirassed bust to left with spear over the right shoulder).