I Will Have Loads Of Fun Trying To Attribute This...

I think by now it's been three or four coins I bought as Marcian that turned out to be anything but (Marcian, of course, didn't issue any non-monogram copper - and my only monogram coin is a Leo).
One in particular turned out to be a common late 4th century type (don't recall which one) missing most of the emperor name - so there was no way to say which emperor. I've put that coin away on some distant shelf; recently tried to find it to look again, but it wasn't on the shelf I thought I put it on, and I don't know where else I could've put it, unfortunately.
(One other was apparently a Julian II; don't remember what the others were if any.)

Another example that barely counts as medieval: a few years ago, I've bought a silver wire coin of Ivan IV thinking it was an example of the supposedly uncommon "sword kopek" variety from 1535; for some reason I decided to weigh it - one of maybe four or five coins I've ever seriously weighed - and got a result of 0.34 grams... much more common, and completely normal, 1540s denga.
(The actual sword kopeks ultimately turned out to be somewhat more common than I thought; I currently own two of them, actually.
Fun fact: etymologically, the word "kopek" means "a coin with a spear" - referring to the iconic horseman-with-spear image from post-1535 kopek types, later reinterpreted as Saint George - so "sword kopek" is an oxymoron. It gets called that anyway.)

Your troubles remind me of my attempts to "attribute" my front-facing copper. The type was issued for Arcadius, Honorius and Theodosius (don't recall which one), and the planchet on my example clips off right after DN - I can just about see the three bottom lines of the first two letters of the emperor name, and nothing of anything further.
Of course, since there are three lines, it's not Honorius, and the spacing of them looks relatively even so it's probably Arcadius (Theodosius would've had a more uneven spacing).

Coincidentally, that's one weird shape for a coin! I wonder whether it was minted that way, or got broken later.

I've made many mistakes over the years, most turn out for the worse, a few turn out for the better but I have learned from both kinds.

My first coin mistake at age 14 was believing a shiny MT thaler was really minted in 1780.

My second was trusting the grading of a coin auctioneer (fortunately, out of business many years ago); the price was fair at the grade stated but it was way overgraded.

Recently I bought a carton of books at auction - just for 2 of the books. Last week I discovered an 1886 copy of English Coins and Tokens with a Chapter on Greek and Roman Coins by Jewett in excellent condition between the pages of a worthless book in the lot.

The best buy I had was while buying some stycas, when the dealer mentioned he had a holed penny of Harold I. I paid a reasonable price. Years later, I discovered it was the much rarer Harold II.

Thanks Anoob. I feel that I have to be interested in a coin's culture/time period before buying. Without having that passion, I think coin collecting would feel pretty empty to me.

Nice piece of shrapnel you have there - but haven't we all?




Not really a mistake but have bought a few coins wrongly attributed and in the end the coin was worth the money.
Have I overpaid for a coin I wanted to have? Certainly but not by much (so far).
Had more good luck with 'misattributions', was quite often able to find a treasure amongst coins put into 'junk boxes', eg got two crusader coppers (Roger of Salerno Follis) from a junk box containing cheap $5 Byzantines.