Official Tetricus?

That has to be Salvs feeding the serpent. So I am thinking it may be RIC 127 where she is also holding a rudder in her left hand. The "A" in the right field must be part of the legend don't you think?

JW

I just went through an exhaustive search of both Tetricus I and II (although I'm fairly certain it is not II) and I can find nothing like your coin. Very interesting. This makes me think it is an unofficial coin of Tetricus. But from where? This is quite a puzzle.

JW

Good point Sel - I'd never really considered that.

There is a whole spectrum of these coins and who can really say where in that line-up the official/unofficial cut-off is exactly.

Barbarous coins are usually identified by their style, and perhaps low weight.

However, I think the possibility exists for those barbarous coin makers to have acquired their skills from those who made the official coins.

That makes the declaration of a coin as being 'barbarous' more difficult.

Thanks Caesar381 - you were indeed correct.

After a bit of searching on the web I also found these Carausius examples:

http://www.acsearch.info/record.html?id=284764Carausius AD 286-293. Antoninianus (16mm, 1.85 g) Uncertain Continental mint. Radiate and cuirassed bust right / VR[IT] PERP, Salus standing left holding cornucopia, feeding serpent rising from altar. RIC V 704.

http://www.marcantica.com/Carausius.htmlIMP CARAVSIVS P F AVG (Radiate, draped and cuirassed bust r. - PAX (AVG) (Salus stg. l., feeding serpent; cornucopiae in l. hand) RIC VOL. V, PART II, No. 933 3,88 g 24,8 mm

A lot of the Carausius coins I've found are thought to have come from an 'uncertain continental mint', possibly Rotomagus. This could certainly tie in with the same reverse showing on an unknown official Gallic coin.

I need to search more for the similar Claudius II, Galienus, Aurelianus... coins to see what conclusions can be drawn. Thanks again to all who looked, this coin has been puzzling me for a while now.




Unfortunately this is an area we know little about Jango. These coins are referred to as Barbarous by most people but probably 'unofficial' is a better description, perhaps 'semi-official' is even better still.

The Romans called anyone who didn't speak Latin barbarians, although this term has romantic connotations these days it was simply for the reason that the Romans could not understand them and they sounded like they were just saying "Barbarbarbar".

These coins were mainly mined on the fringes of the Empire and of those areas Britannia and Gaul seem to have produced a large proportion. They also seem most common in and around the late 3rd century, Tetricus barbs are very common. It is not a coincidence that these two areas both had breakaway Empires.

Undoubtedly some of these coins were made to deceive, fakes, but that amount is probably very small. They were mainly used to combat currency shortage when the Roman machine did not supply enough and also they were probably used for decades if not centuries after the Romans left an outpost to keep the local economy going. The reason they still have Roman subject matter is because the populous had got used to their coins looking a certain way and it was 'safer' for issuers to stick to the well known style. This is where the 'semi-official' tag comes in.

These coins can, sometimes, with reasonable accuracy be put into geographical locations. Coins made in the North of England can be differentiated from other areas of the country. I read recently that 'leaning back' female figures on the reverse almost always came from Gaul - Nice if true but I've not researched it.

Lots of people collect 'barbs' I have 30-50, mainly they are cheap, and as Sel stated often the 'good' ones pass for real coins. The more expensive ones are the quirky / very badly styled ones. Doucet has a one with a Roma commemorative on one side and a Constantinople commemorative on the other, a very quirky coin.

Some interesting ones here:
https://goccf.com/t/60205

And here:
https://goccf.com/t/98095&whichpage=1

This links to another question you have just asked 'Why the lack of 5th century Roman coins?' I think a lot of these barbs (regardless of the Emperors shown on them) are coins from the 4th and 5th centry made in areas that the Roman empire withdrew from leaving the population without coinage and their economies in danger of collapse. The original official coins were copied, then copies made of the copies and so on and so on. 100 years later the Chinese whisper effect gave us the quirkier barbs.

Very interesting. They kind of remind me of Civil War tokens (coins, especially Indian Head cents -with copper, were hoarded and tokens were privately minted for commerce in their place). Thanks for the info bobby.