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 a 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 coin has been condemned as a modern forgery. 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.