Monday 23 May 2011

Carausius and Sol yet again

In October and November 2009 I posted three times on the jugate bust coins of Carausius and Sol.


I noted that RIC and the Hunter Coin Catalogue publication both incorrectly listed an unillustrated coin of the Glasgow University coin collection as having the bust depicted to the right (clearly in error as the coin was said to be an obverse die duplicate of another illustrated coin).

I believe I have now found an illustration of the Glasgow PAX AVGVSTI coin as such a specimen is listed as being in the collection of Scottish doctor John Kennedy in his book, Further Observations on Carausius, Emperor of Britain, and Oriuna (1756).It is interesting to note that Kennedy’s collection of coins of Carausius and Allectus, 256 of the former (including nine silver) and 89 of the latter were purchased by a Mr Webb for the grand total of £86/10 when they came up for auction in 1760 (J Nichols, Literary Anecdotes of the Eighteenth Century (1810)). Many of the Kennedy coins from his two publications on Carausius and Oriuna can be identified in the plates of Anne Robertson's Hunter collection catalogue from 1978.