Constantine I AE Quarter Follis Trier AD 310

|+*Ex Failmezger Collection*|+

Obverse: IMP CONSTANTINVS PF AVG, laureate and draped bust right, seen from rear

Reverse: No legend, VOT/X/MVL/XX within laurel wreath

No Fieldmarks/Officina

No Mintmark

RIC VI Treveri 907

13.4mm, 1.68g

*EXTREMELY RARE EARLY VOTIVE ISSUE, FAMOUS PROVENANCE*

+|THE ONLY KNOWN SPECIMEN|+

An extremely rare, early votive issue, minted around AD 310 at the Regional Imperial Capital of Trier, for Constantine I, prior to his conversion to Christianity and also around the same period in which he had his first ‘vision’, this being of Apollo/Sol Invictvs; although the coin itself leaves much to be desired in terms of quality, the rarity of the coin as well as its provenance negates this entirely

As of the time of this listing, OCRE lists several entries for the votive quarter (¼ ) folli types, nine to be exact, with very slight variations of the obverse legend and portrait style all that seems to separate one entry from another; however, despite there being nine entries, OCRE/RIC lists ZERO specimens for RIC VI Treveri 907, indeed the only RIC entry for this type that has more than just the plate coin seems to be RIC VI 913, which has just over 10 known examples

Although variously labeled 'quarter follis', 'reduced follis', '1/4 or 1/5 follis', I believe to the Romans at the time, this was intended as a Quinarius, the smaller denomination below a Denarius, although I will not add that title to the description as I do not want to mislead anyone; many numismatists, both currently and in the past, referred to any small bronze or silver/silvered coin from this time period as a 'Quinarius', as we know that the Romans still operated their monetary system on the Denarius, even though a true Denarius had not been struck since the mid-3rd Century

If we look at the reverse of some later bronze issues of the 4th Century, such as those struck by Licinius, we see the reverse fields have 'X/III' or similar to denote that the coin was to have the same value as a Denarius; during the Republican days, a Quinarius was supposed to be the value of 'half a denarius' or five asse (AeAs), thus I can understand the correlation between a quarter follis and a Quinarius to a certain extent, however this can become very confusing, very quickly

So we will call this specimen a quarter follis to avoid any kind of confusion over the semantics of Roman denominational names; as stated above, this quarter follis is attributed to RIC VI Treveri 907, the main difference between this entry and the other entry immediately before, RIC VI 902, is the addition of IMP at the beginning of the obverse legend of RIC VI 907 and the fact that Constantine is cuirassed on RIC VI 902 whilst he is simply draped on RIC VI 907 (this coin); the entry immediately following RIC VI 907, being RIC VI 908A, also has an obverse legend beginning with IMP but shows Constantine as 'laureate and cuirassed' whereas he is, again, simply 'laureate and draped' on RIC VI 907 (this coin)

OCRE/RIC also lists two entries of this type from Trier for Licinius I and Maximinus Daia, both of which, like the specimen of Constantine, are quite rare; it has always stuck me as interesting to see Constantine's mints issue coinage for Maximinus Daia, as Maximinus was a truly SEVERE persecutor of Christians in the East, indeed much more so than either Diocletian or Galerius; for Constantine to be considered the 'First Christian Emperor', yet issued coins in the name of the man responsible for such atrocities, makes one realize that either Constantine had not full embraced Christianity as of yet, or perhaps (cynically) issued coins for political gain, i.e. 'keeping the peace' while plans were put into motion; however this is purely conjecture on my part, although this is backed up to an extent by some of the sources and also by some modern historians, who saw Constantine's conversion as less than genuine 

As this coin was minted prior to AD 313, Nummus-Bible can provide us with no assistance, as the site does not begin to register coins until after AD 312 and Constantine's Victory over Maxentius at the Milvian Bridge, which is also the year that we turn from RIC Volume VI to RIC Volume VII, as Volume VI begins and ends with the Tetrachy and as Volume VII begins and ends with the reign of Constantine I and his sons and heirs

Auction archives/ACSearch show roughly 30 Votive 1/4 folli from the mint of Trier issued in Constantine's name, however ZERO of these are attributed to RIC VI Treveri 907; that said, it is EXTREMELY difficult to tell which of these very small coins shows just a cuirass and which of them shows a simple draped bust; it would also appear that nearly all known examples are as severely worn as our specimen, thus making it even more difficult to see the details of the portrait; what is slightly easier to see is the obverse inscription or legend, as our specimen begins with IMP, we can exclude the examples that begin with CONSTANTINVS; out of those listed by ACSearch, just THREE begin with IMP, however these three all show a cuirassed bust in lieu of a simple draped bust

The closest specimen to this one would likely be the following RIC entry after RIC VI Treveri 907, either RIC VI 908A or 909A, both beginning with IMP, however 908A contains PF (Pius Felix) where as 907 and 909A do not; thus the closest example would actually be RIC VI 909A, of there are a few auction listings, the most recent being:

Roma Numismatics Limited, E-Sale 56, Lot 1139, 5/09/2019, which went unsold

It would appear that either people were wary of purchasing from Roma after the scandal with the Caesar/Brutus coins a few years ago or they did not appreciate that of which they were looking at; granted, at first glace these quaurter folli are not much to look at, as they are ALL generally lower grade specimens which also, at first glace, appears to be a general, run of the mill VOT/X/MVLT/XX type of which there are hundreds of known examples; a trained eye, however, would be able to pick this type out immediately

For a specimen sold by Roma prior to said scandal which caused them to shut down see:

 Roma Numismatics Limited, E-Sale 80, Lot 1655, 2/04/2021, which sold for 170 GBP or roughly $232, which of course does not include the 'Buyers Premium', which I believe Roma's was set to roughly 20% at the time, which would bring the total up to roughly $280 and still not include tax, shipping, insurance, VAT, etc....

As stated above, this specimen comes from the highly respected Failmezger Collection, of Victor Failmezger, which combines coins from three older collections into one: Bavarian Collection, which was formed in Bavaria, Germany between 1890 and 1930, the Switz Collection and the Vienna Collection; Victor Failmezger authored the text/reference book 'Roman Bronze Coins: From Paganism to Christianity 294-364 AD; Mr. Failmezger, a retired United States Naval Officer, passed away in July 2021 at the age of 74, thus it is up to us, the collector/dealer community, to ensue his legacy and coins from his collection, are well taken care of (my father is also an Navy man: HT-PO2 USS FDR CVA 42 and USS Independence CVA 60)