Need Help Identifying This Ancient Nummus, Follis, Ae4?

It's a Late Roman bronze. The reverse type is "votive"; it's a bit blurry but the central inscription says "VOT X MVLT XX". Several emperors issued coins with that type - essentially, any of the mid-to-late emperors who managed to reign for 10 years issued this design. The reverse legend very roughly translates to "vows made on year 10, many more for year 20".

Options are: Julian II, Valens, Valentinian I, Valentinian II, Theodosius I and Arcadius. Of these names, "DN THEODOSIVS PF AVG" is the best-fit for the surviving obverse lettering, so that would make your coin Theodosius I. The mintmark might be SMK, but that's even harder to be sure of. Numista similar example: https://en.numista.com/318528

It's certainly "overcleaned", but it might have been heavily corroded to start with. I'd assume it to be genuine.

Roman coin dies were hand-carved; there's lots of variation in design between different mints, and even within the same mint.


Again, because Roman coins were hand-made, the die alignment is for the most part random.


The coin is both pitted and shows bright, bare metal. A 1600 year old Roman bronze coin is going to need at least some cleaning and will have a thick layer of patina on it, and most of the surviving detail of the original coin is going to be preserved in the patina, not the metal. Thus a coin that has had its patina completely stripped away is "overcleaned", by typical collector standards. Now, as I said earlier, perhaps it was severely corroded or damaged when it was found and cleaning his severely was necessary. Or perhaps is was overcleaned by a zealous but inexperienced cleaner.

Very informative, Sap.