Acg's Top 25 Roman Coins

Thanks Doucet, I'm on it..

Steve you crack me up...

I sincerely doubt this. RIC 188 with officina E is R2. RIC 230 is S. Eng5858's coin is an RIC 188 with shop delta (C3) as evidenced by his giving the weight at 2.4g. I suspect coin #2 is a 230 and weighs under 2g. No?

<sermon>
I'd also like to know the weights of Doucet's coins before assigning an RIC ID. The E shop one looks like it could be heavy but we are really puching it trying to weigh coins from photos. The note to RIC 229 admits that there could be some mixup in the two groups as they have separated them and I would really, really suggest no one pay any premium for rarities in this series unless they can explain the differences more eloquently than the authors of RIC which only talk about weights in footnotes. Perhaps even more strange to my eye is that RIC Volume VIII lists only the Constantinopolis obverse paired with the Gloria Exercitus reverse (one standard) giving it #59 (page 407 and R4) but no normal reverse coins which would be very hard to separate from the Volume VII #230 coins. Below is my example of RIC 188 weighing 2.84g (compare style to Doucet's coin which is partly why I suspect his may be the heavy issue 188 rather than the later, lighter 230). RIC notes mention two wing variations according to the degree of spread but stops short of saying the tucked wings are earlier than the spread ones. The mention the difference but do not assign different RIC numbers to them. The fact that I have what I believe to be the RIC 188 E shop R2 and Doucet seems to have another suggests what we all should know that a lot of coins have been found since RIC was written so R2 may not mean anything here anymore.




Why do I write all this? Either you want to be a specialist student in these coins or you are not so inclined. I'm not but when I get a coin I tend to study up on it. If you are going to worry about which RIC number your coin is you really need to buy RIC (at least Volumes 6, 7 and 8 which cover Post Reform Diocletian through Jovian). As an owner you may as well also read all the notes and try to figure out why the authors did some things the super detailed way they did and did not bother with others. Otherwise you may prefer to consider these coins just commemoratives. You might even want one from each mint but stop short of paying extra for an R2 E over a C3 delta. I paid $12 for my E RIC 188 coin shown here but that was because it seemed a different style than others I had and looked to be worth $12. For the record, I like coin #2 for its refined style even if it is 'only S'. Don't get hung up in RIC rarity ratings. Don't worry if you have trouble running every coin through the catalogs. There is a lot of fun to be had as a general collector until, eventually, you find out what specialty really means enough to you to lose sleep over workshop letters and wing positions. </sermon>

I hope every coin you post is as interesting and nice as the two we have seen so far.

Don't assume that the workshops each had separate die engravers. Maybe they did sometimes but there is nothing in the workshop system that would not allow obverse dies to be issued to the striking teams from a central pool. I believe the style difference you see here might be more a matter of time passing or individual cutters coming and going rather than proof that one shop should have one style and another another. The Commemoratives were issued for several years and styles do change in that time. Perhaps someone is working out the order of issues and will someday publish something that makes this all clear?

My SMTSE (1st photo) weighs 2.5g

The second SMTSD actually weighs 3.0g

I am no expert by any means, especially about weights and dates, and don't have access to RIC (except for Helvetica) but I have about forty of these types and have looked at a lot of them to acquire the ones I have.


Doug said "You might even want one from each mint but stop short of paying extra for an R2 E over a C3 delta."

I agree with this. The RIC rating might not be the same today as when it was written. I have indeed seen a few like Doug's SMTSE and mine for sale in the last year.

I have gone a little further in that I'm trying to locate one from each officina as well, but I have never bought one in consideration of it's (R) value. Only for it's eye appeal or clearness of mint mark and legend, and now price.

I have made a number of price mistakes though. In the beginning I bought a few coins that I liked from an expensive dealer in France , only to see them sell for a quarter of the cost as I looked for others that I needed.

If how often a coin comes up for sale or how many examples you can find that have been sold is a good determining factor for rarity then I can tell you there are three or four of officinas for the Constantinopolis that are quite rare, even though RIC shows them not to be, and vice versus is probably true as well.

Ok Guys,

I have 2 of these and I got the wieght wrong on the first.......1.98gm x 19 mm and after looking threw the 10x,... mintmark...SMTS-D.....
The 2nd. coin 2.53 gm x 16 mm.. dot BSIS dot here's the pic..
I've got a lot to learn ..
Does any one know what my first coin is worth.?





Yes it's soaking right now....

I believe XXI is in reference to it's copper to silver ratio: 20 parts of copper (XX) to one part of silver (I).

yacg,

Your third coin is, Sweet, well centered , patina, brings out the high lights of the coin... I would like to give you the first coin that I posted.(city Commem)..
I'm not at 250 posts to sell, so i'll give to you...Found that I have 10 of these coins, 1 is a Constantinople mint...hope this one is a rare one!!!



looks like big P CONST mint mark..also looks like star in left field...I don't see this style in wildwinds...maybe dougsmit or Doucet can help.....small coin 1.44gms x 10mm...