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 Replies: 13 / Views: 1,194 |
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Pillar of the Community
778 Posts |
It is time to sell this coin, and I want to describe it correctly. Is the description shown correct?   Thanks, Bill Edited by BillSnyder
06/03/2014 7:25 pm
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Moderator
 Australia
16859 Posts |
Yes, it is mis-spelled: CONTANTINVS, missing the first "S".
The Sear number is out of date.
Don't say "infinitely" when you mean "very"; otherwise, you'll have no word left when you want to talk about something really infinite. - C. S. Lewis
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Pillar of the Community
United Kingdom
1569 Posts |
It is not spelt incorrectly, simply a worn die. Count the letters yourself. Many coins like this turn up in lots claiming to be miss spelt, not so. The Romans turned out to be many things, illiterate was not one of them.
You will never soar like an eagle if you hang around with turkeys.....
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Pillar of the Community
 United States
3098 Posts |
You are correct. There is a missing letter in his name. I've seen several Roman coins with errors in the legends.
The style looks good, so I would guess it's a celator's engraving error and not an imitative with blundered legend.
Paul Bulgerin
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Pillar of the Community
United Kingdom
1569 Posts |
Coins are around with the s taken out, these are generally ones depicting the Emperor in military dress with the obverse bust leaving less room than desired for more than a simple execution of the correct wording.
You will never soar like an eagle if you hang around with turkeys.....
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Pillar of the Community
United Kingdom
4208 Posts |
Interesting. Its been suggested that the busts were engraved by a trained die sinker whilst the legends were cut by rookies afterwards - often with errors or poor kerning (very few roman coins have perfect kerning - on some coins you'll see the G in AVG crushed nearly into a line - the opposite is true here, theres a big gap, perhaps caused by the missing letter. Someone felt silly when they finished that).
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Pillar of the Community
 778 Posts |
What is the current Sear number (and does Sear mention this spelling)?
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Pillar of the Community
United Kingdom
1569 Posts |
Well summed up Ben, the case of missing letters is a rare occurrence, on this type anyway. But if you look at the coin and actually count the letters out as they should be then they are, in actual fact, all there, all be it, a line instead of the letter..
You will never soar like an eagle if you hang around with turkeys.....
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Pillar of the Community
United Kingdom
1569 Posts |
Not sure if David list's the coin with an error or not, I have the set but very rare that I use them. It's a bit like having a celtic coin and turning to the authority on it to give an authentication. I have people I trust that give me help when I need it. For late Roman bronze I ask Ben for help, for Byzantine Ron is A1, for ancient Greek I would ask Ancient Noob (Nathan), Pish is a star at finding stuff that no one else can id....... the point being, if you have an item of value then who do you turn too to help? I have seen many things posted on various sites that have had people reject as fake or later than they are supposed to be. When I joined this forum I was a total noob, and I mean I had no idea at all. I strongly believe that you learn by doing and not just reading and over the past year alone I have had well over 100 thousand late Roman bronze coins pass through my hands. I can spot a late reproduction coin (of those there are many), a coin that is 'different', a coin that does not belong and coins that are cleaned by electrolysis. The point here being, what exactly makes someone right and someone wrong? Sear wrote books, can he make a living buying and selling coins? Rudd, did the same thing, he can now charge almost twice the rate of anyone else for a coin. So if this is the trend, next year, instead of me selling nice Roman coins at 2 pounds a pop, do I release a book, a website and charge 20 times the going rate? No one person has an overall say on ancient coins. Opinions vary, even the British museum will admit (under circumstances) that they have items in their collection that they are pretty sure are not of the period they should be.
You will never soar like an eagle if you hang around with turkeys.....
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Pillar of the Community
United States
4421 Posts |
I think that misspelled has perhaps been misspelled?  Edited by ExoGuy
06/03/2014 10:14 pm
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Moderator
United States
23731 Posts |
These are not as uncommon as you may think, while interesting to find they really don't command any more value. The person cutting the dies that day might have been in his cups.
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Pillar of the Community
United States
4971 Posts |
still a nice coin, could be much better centered could it? excellent details also.
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Moderator
Australia
16859 Posts |
Quote:
What is the current Sear number (and does Sear mention this spelling)? Turns out I was wrong about this. I thought Constantine II was listed in Sear Volume IV, but he's not. We'll have to wait until Volume V gets published before we know what the new numbers are for this emperor. Don't say "infinitely" when you mean "very"; otherwise, you'll have no word left when you want to talk about something really infinite. - C. S. Lewis
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Pillar of the Community
United Kingdom
1569 Posts |
Does anyone have a date that the 5th Sear volume will be released? Not my most used reference but a useful one all the same.
You will never soar like an eagle if you hang around with turkeys.....
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Replies: 13 / Views: 1,194 |
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Posted 06/03/2014 6:40 pm
