Denarius of Hadrian:

Counterfeit, Imitation, or Fake?


HADRIANVS AVG COS (???) COS----(D)ES IIII


I have allowed the highlighting to wash out in order to get a better look at the more shadowed surfaces. This was scanned as it is in order to give a large image on a 1024x768 screen, It will look huge on a 640x480, and probably a bit grainy. My apologies to those with low resolution screens. If necessary I could do another image for the lower res screens. Write and let me know if that would be useful to you.


There can be little doubt that this denarius of Hadrian is not an official issue. Consider the following points:

  1. The apparent DES IIII reference in the reverse legend makes it impossible for this to be a Hadrianic reverse, since Hadrian was not honored with a fourth consulship. The rest of the legend is evidently incomplete, key elements being off the flan, and reads COS----(D)ES IIII
  2. The reverse type is not known for any other denarius of Hadrian, and may be described as "Pax stg draped bearing cornucopia in her left hand with long trailing sleeve, holding out branch to left with her right hand. The branch intrudes on the legend between the "O" and "S" of COS.
  3. This combination of reverse type and legend is attested among the denarii of Antoninus Pius, the immediate successor to Hadrian:

  4. Compare this reverse to that of BMC 504 for Antoninus Pius

    BMCRE (vol. IV, plate 11, no. 8) - 144 A.D.
  5. The obverse right legend is ill formed in weak thin letters. The letters COS are clearly evident, but the letter O is virtually reduced to a dot. Nothing seems to follow even in the little space remaining to the edge of the flan. For the known types of Hadrianic legends for denarii, the closest legend which would match would read: HADRIANVS AVG COS III PP, in use from 134-138.
  6. The style of the obverse portrait is uncharacteristc for Hadrian, and differs from anything at Rome, especially in the treatment of the mouth. Certain features of this portrait appear in others from certain from eastern mints, but no other unites these characteristics in quite the way we see here.

  7. Compare the obverse lettering here with that on BMC 1026 (uncertain Eastern mint, 119-125)

    BMCRE (vol. III, plate 68, no. 14)
  8. The coin is full silver throughout, and weighs 2.22 grams. This is about 1/3 too light for a normal denarius of Hadrian.

Though it is not technically fouree, I cannot rule out the possibility that the piece is a hybrid using a reverse normally associated with something (someone) else. I am presently inclined to think the coin is unofficial until other research vindicates it.


If you think you might be able to shed some light on my questions, contact me at sknapp@corecomm.net

My thanks to the following gentlemen from Numism-L who so kindly shared with me their opinions on this piece. I hope that despite the diversity of their opinions I have fairly represented the consensus: Buzz Ferebee, Robert Kokotailo, Jim McWhorter, Warren Esty, David (Mac) MacDonald, Pete Burbules. Their comments follow in no particular order.

One thought I have is that there is probably nothing between the COS and DES portions of the reverse inscription i.e. your legend is complete. I would also believe this to be very early in the reign....117 AD or 118 AD. Since the coin is as Augustus, it also disqualifies what my first guess was which was it is as Caesar under Trajan....often overlooked when consulting references...but this cannot be so.

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Your coin of Hadrian is either a barbaric imitation(possible Danubian Celt) or a fake, in that the portrait does not appear to be from a Roman mint.

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I just had a look at your image. The coin certainly looks ancient, but the portrait style is rather strange (especially around the mouth). I suspect you are correct that it is not of official issue. Is there any way for your to quick the silver purity (specific gravity, microprobe or other). There is really no reason to have made such an item back then if the silver content is correct.

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I looked at your website coin and it looks genuinely ancient, but definitely not official. BMC page 72 for Antoninus Pius has a number of COSIII DESIIII coins of 144. I have many "hybrid" fourre forgeries, forgers cared little about combining proper obverse/reverse combinations. I have a full-silver unofficial Septimius Severus (bought from Curtis Clay, who is writing the upcoming RIC revision on SS) and he has no explanation for it, so I can't explain why an imitation would apparently be full silver. It is very interesting and the type of thing I collect. I hope to write seriously one day about imitations, and I have a good collection of them, but there is simply too little known yet.

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I can find no evidence that Hadrian was ever designated consul for a fourth time. RIC lists no legend such as any you have described. It seems unlikely that he could have been designated, even for the year following his death, since he died rather too early in the year. In any case, I found no record of even such an obverse legend. The nearest to any correspondence would be a legend of A. Pivs, about 144: COS.III DES.IIII. I suppose one could theorize a hybrid or a mule, if the two sides fit a date right after the accession of A. Pivs, but six years later? RIC 117 is a Pax reverse with that legend. A footnote records a variant obverse legend, of "foreign fabric". Someone at a provincial mint getting careless?

[My comment on this: This sounds like the most promising avenue to pursue. Cross checking the numbers for Antoninus Pius RIC 117 gives Cohen 187/88 (also RSC, of course, which notes the foreign fabric) and BMC 504 with a similar footnote (see illustration above for reverse). If this is a hybrid ("mule"), as I suspect, then the import would be that an old Hadrian obverse was paired with a later reverse. Unfortunately the obverse does not correspond stylistically for anything known for Hadrian. If indeed it lacked official standing as a mint issue, as such a hybrid surely would, there is no reason to be concerned in our thinking about being close to the accession year of Ant. Pius, especially if the fraud originated in the provinces.

My general impression of the coin is that the portrait "style" is not of the usual "official" quality. The coin suggest nothing to me so much as a second or third level celator's attempt to mint a few extra coins, perhaps with silver scraps saved from the workroom floor or workers' sandals, etc. One of my pet ideas is that engravers went through a course of apprenticeship, in which the engraving of obverse dies was reserved for masters and the reverse dies were sometimes executed by less experienced celators. The reverse seems to be pretty close to the illustration of #504 in BMC, but the obverse just doesn't quite hit the mark. I'm imagining (not very scientific, perhaps) a scenario in which an apprentice cut an obverse die of Hadrian from memory and used either an official reverse die or, more likely, one that he made on the side or in the workshop but never used. Also, the coin seems to be the product of rather uncritical minting (some letters hardly struck up; and the die not filled at one side, almost as though there was barely enough silver, or the workers were trying to stretch their silver as far as possible ). How does the weight and specific gravity compare with mean weights of denarii of Hadrian and of A. Pivs?


If you think you might be able to shed some additional light on my questions, contact me at sknapp@sknapp.net

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