Confirm Carinus, Not Diocletian Tetradrachma

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Author	Replies: 6 / Views: 1,955
delaner Pillar of the Community United States 870 Posts	Posted 05/03/2010 1:33 pm Hello, picked this up yesterday from the "inexpensive bin". When I asked what it was, the proprietor said it was from Diocletian, minted in Alexandria under the Romans, 284-305 AD (ce). When I got home, I started in on some research and was unable to find a Diocletian era tetradrachm that matches this reverse (the obverse has been adversely effected by the subverse time.) (Obvioursly.) Anyway, after some virtual digging, it seems to match an image of Nike, which would make it from the mint of that lecherous loser to Diocletian, a certain Mr. Carinus. I'm not really concerned about value, it was a bargain - I just want to make sure my numismatism isn't an astigmatism rather than pragmatism. I really do need to get back to work. It's simply too easy to get punny with money. sigh Report this Post to the Staff

vermontensium Moderator United States 16679 Posts	Posted 05/03/2010 6:25 pm swcoin.ecrater.com Report this Post to the Staff
echizento Moderator United States 23731 Posts	Posted 05/03/2010 9:15 pm I believe that you are correct. This coin does appear to be a billon Tetradrachm Carinus circa 283 AD. I was able to match the reverse with one listed on Forvm Ancients Coins. Report this Post to the Staff
Sap Moderator Australia 16859 Posts	Posted 05/03/2010 9:27 pm It's hard to say. There are Diocletian coins with this reverse; Wildwinds lists Milne #4857 with this same basic design. Obverse and reverse. However, yours seems to have "ETOUS" (year) spelled out in full to the left of Nike, rather than using the shorthand symbol "L"; I haven't found a Diocletian tet that did that, but I could find examples that had this feature from the reigns of Carinus and Numerian, on this page (RIC Emmet #4010 and 4022 respectively). The type also exists for Aurelian and probably other emperors, too. So I agree with you that it may not be Diocletian, but I can't say for sure exactly who it is instead. 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 Report this Post to the Staff
delaner Pillar of the Community United States 870 Posts	Posted 05/03/2010 11:11 pm verm - I hope to be as entertaining as possible. In a productive, polite manner (most of the time). echi - cool! That proves I may at least be on the right track to even look, good news as I don't care to waste my time on silliness too often. Sap - whoa, thank you QUITE much for posting! Thanks for finding that Milne (couldn't be too hard, it was among the first listings on Google for the correct term - SORRY I missed it, I'll try to be more careful next time.) But again, thank you! Very cool to see what it='s supposed to look like perhaps! As far as "ETOUS" - boy, you're way better at this than I am, I can't make out ANY letters, nicely done! The way the shop proprietor described it, he explained it to be Athena holding Nike (as in Milne 4851 - http://www.wildwinds.com/coins/ric/...ne_4851.jpg) - so I'm fairly sure after reviewing all of this, it's not exactly what he thought it was. But as for it not being what I thought it was, well thank you for your help and it seems the search doth continue! Report this Post to the Staff
vermontensium Moderator United States 16679 Posts	Posted 05/03/2010 11:40 pm I still have much to learn :-) I really enjoy reading all the posts. swcoin.ecrater.com Report this Post to the Staff
delaner Pillar of the Community United States 870 Posts	Posted 05/06/2010 4:14 pm Well, Vermontensium - if for no other purpose than informing you, here's what I've found so far... Could be Numerianus: http://othila-coins.com/munten/artikel_pic591.jpg found at http://othila-coins.com/index.php?p...s=Alexandria Could be Carinus: http://bargainbinancients.com/zen/i...c59cab6cca32 Or could be Diocletian: http://wildwinds.com/coins/ric/dioc...e_4857-o.jpg http://wildwinds.com/coins/ric/dioc...e_4857-r.jpg After reviewing all of this, I concur with Sap on the "ETOVS", so I'm sticking with my original assessment that in all likelihood, this old one is from the time of Carinus. Any way you look at it, it was made in Roman Egypt (Alexandria) sometime around the latter half of the 3nd century CE (283-288 AD) All in all, good enough for me! I find it fascinating that different emperors used such similar obverses on their coinage and even duplicated reverses repeatedly from different periods! Man, there are a flat ton of Roman coin variations. I wonder if somebody will have the same revelation in 2000 years while trying to figure out why the numismatically staid United States chose suddenly, after eons of the same quarter dollar, to have a billion variations in the space of only a few years! =) Report this Post to the Staff
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