Arguably The Last Ancient Coin

They are the same denomination, the M is the Greek '40' indicating that the coin is a 40 Nummi.

BTW - Doucet's coin is quite nice with a great amount of the emperors bust intact. Certainly better than most out there.

Loving the Goldie!

There are different ideas as to the boundary of "ancient" versus "medieval". I do not really see the point of using the year 476 AD specifically.

The most common opinion in Roman coin collecting seems to be putting the border at 498 AD, in which case the last ancient coin is the monogram type above. My own opinion, as of a few months ago, put the entire Byzantine letter-coded series on the "ancient" side, giving a boundary somewhere in the 7th century; lately I've been persuaded to switch to the 498 version of the boundary.

Some don't include the Byzantines at all, occasionally even going as far as putting Arcadius coins in "medieval" while the same types from Honorius are considered "ancient" (IIRC, there's a somewhat infamous catalogue structured that way). Some go all the way in the other direction: I've seen a post which featured a coin said to be the respective member's (I'm paraphrasing slightly) "most recent ancient coin, and probably will stay that way"; it was a small silver coin of John VIII - that is to say, from the 15th century.

The whole thing goes much more confusing once we get to non-Roman issues, obviously; IIRC, some member here, after considering some of these problems, decided to just use the year 500 as a nice round boundary.

Some great coins in this thread. I have to get some Byzantine issues soon.



Is the Byzantine Empire considered medieval? I've always wondered where to draw the line between "ancient and " medieval". I know there are a lot of different interpretations of it.

What's even more confusing to me is where to draw the line between Roman and Byzantine coinage. Some say it's after Theodosius, after Romulus Augustus, after Zeno, or after Anastasius's monetary reforms in 498. Personally, where do you think the split is?

Most of my Byzantine coins are middle to late empire so I don't have any Anastasius. Seeing Anoob's and all these other nice coins I'm going to have to make it a point to start working on the early empire.

Whether "Byzantine" coins are "ancient" or "medieval" has been discussed many times. Ancient-coin dealers carry Byzantine coins and the few "medieval" coin dealers carry Byzantine coins. They are both.

At the beginning of the reign of Anastasius (491-518) coin denominations were as they had been under the previous emperors, a tiny copper "nummis" AE4 (those tiny monogram pieces) and gold, with essentially nothing in between. In 498 Anastasius reformed the denomination system by adding in larger "M" pieces which were supposed to be worth 40 (M = 40, in Greek) of the nummia. The first reform began with the "small module" M pieces. But, they were much less than 40 times the weight of the nummia and met with resistance. Then a second reform coin was introduced, larger, still with an M. These are the ones most commonly seen. The larger M type is accompanied by corresponding "K" 20-nummia pieces and even 10-nummia (with "I" for 10 in Greek) and 5-nummia pieces (with "E" for 5).

The smaller "M" type also has some "K" and "I" coins to go with it. They are rare.

My old (86) friend DC, who was a minor dealer asked me to sell his remaining Byzantine coins and he had some of those tiny AE4 monograms which I have not put on the site yet and two of the small-module M pieces on the page I am using:

http://augustusmath.hypermart.net/Crosses.html#Byz

Byzantine coins can be interesting for the numerous unlisted varieties that can be found. One on that page has a dot (globe) above the head which is not usual. The other is listed, but has an odd-shaped six-pointed star unlike most Byzantine six-pointed stars. If you like Byzantine coins, those sorts of details become interesting. You can't expect to love Byzantine coins for artistry or high grade.