Radiate bust right, IMP SPONSIANI // Column surmounted by statue holding staff; on either side, togate figure and ear of barley set on forepart of lion, S A-VG. 20mm, 7.24 grams. RIC 4C #1.

Modern collector's strike in gold-plated brass (not solid gold) - not an "authentic" coin (whatever it might mean in the case of Sponsianus), of the correct size and weight - "real" coins of Sponsianus cannot be obtained, and this coin is intended as a sort of a hole filler for an ancient coin collection.

The sole evidence for the existence of Sponsianus is his name on a few double-aurei and a silver coin reportedly uncovered in a coin-hoard in Transylvania in 1713, and subsequently dispersed among several collections. The authenticity of these coins has been doubted ever since - Cohen called them "very poor quality modern forgeries", and the coins have been condemned as modern forgeries. Some research in 2022 showed that the coins of Sponsianus might indeed be authentic, but the coinage makes zero numismatic sense, with an unorthodox obverse and a reverse derived from Roman Republican denarius of C. Minucius Augurinus (135 BC). My personal belief is that all coins of "Sponsianus" are modern forgeries.