Bust Right Constantinopolis

Those imitators often got things wrong. I've got a fel temp somewhere thats the wrong way round...

They did a good job on rendering here, though.

That is an excellent imitation with the right-facing bust being very unusual. To see some left-facing (normal) imitations, visit here:
http://esty.ancients.info/imit/imitCONST.html br /
In England they are very common in sizes significantly smaller than the (already small) AE4 originals. Nearly full size imitations are hard to find.

Though most of the "Barbarian" successor kingdoms would base their coinage on Roman types, if not reuse Roman coins (such as the countermarked Assarii of Vespasian used by the Ostrogoths) what is termed "Barbarous radiate / AE3/4" were unofficially issued coins struck by Roman citizens, i.e. within the Empire and not from without.

So "Unofficial" is essentially the correct term for "Barbarous" in reference to unoffical Roman AE coins.

Of course we know about the Danubian Celtic imitations of Macedonian Tetradrachm, in that sense these are "Barbarous" imitiations, in reference to Greek AR coins.


http://www.coinproject.com/coin_det...?coin=269412


http://www.edgarlowen.com/a44cg.shtml

Official coin...dyslexic celetor...that's my call.

Nice coin Doucet!

For years "unofficial" and "barbarous" were synonyms to most writers. A local down the road could make a "barbarous" radiate without being a barbarian in the non-Roman sense. Writers and especially dealers make far more assertions about this or that coin being made by German barbarians, or Vandals, than justified by the evidence. Many types formerly thought to be "Vandal" are not even primarily found in Africa! Many "migration era" imitations are from the "migration era" if and only if you count that era as including the times of the prototypes. Kent and others have pretty much shown that virtually all imitations of Constantinian-family types are from the periods when the prototypes were circulating. So, I am still willing to call "barbarous radiates" by that term, although to be technical they are "unofficial."

About the right-facing coin: Official coins of that type tend to be 17 mm, not 15. They tend to be a bit heavier that that coin. I classify it as a remarkable unofficial coin.