RRRRR follis of Constantine the Great (307-337 AD). Famous Christian Constantinople mint issue struck 337 AD

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Copying the famous Constantinople mint issue struck 337 AD. Laureate head right / SPES/A - PVBLIC across field, labarum, with three medallions on drapery and crowned by a christogram, spearing serpent; CONS retrograde. 19mm, 2.45 grams. Cf. RIC VII 19. VF, dark green patina with sandy highlights, much nicer than the photo. An official coin of this type was recently sold for 13000$ plus fees (http://www.cngcoins.com/Coin.aspx?CoinID=175939). The only other imitative coin of this type ever published was sold by CNG in 2002 (http://www.cngcoins.com/Coin.aspx?CoinID=21369) for 2050$ plus fees. There has been much speculation regarding this extremely rare issue, minted only at Constantinople during AD 327/8, since it is the only issue of Constantine I which appears to be so overtly Christian in its symbolism. The reverse shows for the first time the labarum (a specifically Christian symbol) firmly planted on the back of a wriggling serpent. Influenced by the ancient sources (the Panegyrici Latini and, in particular the Vita Constantini of Eusebius), J. Maurice, in his Numismatique Constantinienne (II, pp. 506-13), was the first to argue for such an unambiguous interpretation the symbol of Christ piercing the dark powers of Satan a view accepted by subsequent scholars and numismatists (P. Bruun, "The Christian signs on the coins of Constantine" in Studies in Constantinian Numismatics: Papers from 1954 to 1988 [Rome: 1991], p.61).


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