From the Gemini IV Auction, Closed January 8, 2008.



                  Lot # 509 - Auction is closed.Estimate: US$3000 / Price 
                  Realized: US$5000 
                  Martinian. Reduced billon follis 



             



            Martinian. (324 AD). Reduced billon follis (1.99 gm). Cyzicus. IM CS 
            MAR MARTINIANVÃ P F AVS (sic), bust radiate, draped, cuirassed 
            right, seen from front / IOVI CONSERVATORI, Jupiter standing left, 
            holding Victory on globe and eagle-tipped scepter, on ground eagle 
            with wreath in beak left and bound captive right, X / IIÃ in field 
            right, SMKB in exergue. RIC 16, new officina B=2. Cohen 2 (M. Mowat, 
            200 Fr.). Rare usurper, extremely rare at Cyzicus mint, unpublished 
            officina B. Typically granular but with strong legends. Very fine 
            for issue. 

            Martinian was made Augustus and put at the head of an army by 
            Licinius I at the beginning of his civil war with Constantine I in 
            324 AD, but he was put to death by Constantine soon after the latter 
            defeated Licinius in the battle of Chrysopolis. Most surviving coins 
            of Martinian, for example 18 of the 20 specimens included in 
            CoinArchives and the Berk photofile combined, come from the mint of 
            Nicomedia, with obverse legend D N M (the M sometimes omitted) 
            MARTINIANVS (or MARTINIANO) P F AVG, and mintmark of the form SMNA, 
            RIC Nicomedia 45–47. Coins of Martinian from Cyzicus, in contrast, 
            with mintmark of the form SMKA, are much rarer. In a quick search we 
            can find only the following five specimens: Officina A: (a) BM, 
            illustrated in RIC VII, pl. 22, 16; (b) Gilhofer & Ranschburg / 
            Hess, 22 May 1935, Franz Trau, pl. 44, 3838, perhaps the same coin 
            quoted by Cohen 2 from the Mowat Collection; (c ) Harlan J. Berk, 
            131st Buy or Bid Sale, 2 April 2002, lot 437. Officina B: (d) our 
            coin, previously unpublished. Officina Ä: (e) Triton VIII, 11 
            January 2005, lot 1246. The coins of Martinian at Cyzicus have a 
            different obverse legend than at Nicomedia, beginning with the odd 
            IM CS for IMP CAESAR, expanding M to MAR, and containing two errors, 
            MARTINIANVà for MARTINIANVS and AVS for AVG. The blundered à in 
            MARTINIANVÃ does not seem to have been noticed before: this word has 
            hitherto been misread MARTINIANV (Cohen) or MARTINIANVS (RIC, Trau 
            catalogue, Berk 131, Triton VIII). 




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