Help With Identification Of Late Roman Bronze

Wow thats a big post. Might be a good idea if once your happy with an ID and someone has confirmed it that you go back to your original post and add the info next to the pictures so people know what is and isn't IDed.

I'll have a pop at the 1st 5.

#1 Gordian III - IMP CAES M ANT GORDIANVS AVG / P M S COL VIM - 239-240AD.
http://www.forumancientcoins.com/ca....com/Coins2/
The bull and the lion on the back represent Legions VII and IV who were stationed in Viminacium where the coin was minted - worth around $40US in this condition due to the links to the legions.

#2 Claudius II Gothicus - MP CLAVDIVS P F AVG / VICTORIA AVG - 268-270AD.
Similar to http://www.wildwinds.com/coins/ric/...RIC_0171.jpg
Not sure if yours has a picture of Victory or Nike on the reverse, prob Victory. Unsure of mint.

#3 Elagabalus - IMP ANTONINVS PIVS AVG / LIBERTAS AVG - 220-222AD
http://www.forumancientcoins.com/ca....com/Coins2/
Probably minted in Rome - worth around $40.

#4 Gallienus - GALLIENVS AVG / LAETITIA AVG - 245-268AD
Probably minted Rome or Milan

#5 Diocletian - IMP C C VAL DIOCLETIANVS P F AVG / VIRTVS AVG - 285ish AD
http://tetrarchy.com/coppermine/dis...bum=25&pos=1
Not sure what your Mintmark says - I can read XXIT but not sure what is in front of it. It could be a Q - if it is its Ticinum mint. It looks like it could be XLXXIT?

Oh, no! All the coins where together in a bag. Now they are all infected!
I shall change my post as the coins get identified as you suggested however I am now worried that all the effort might be in vain and that all coins will vanish because of the bronze disease. I will read your thread on the bronze disease and change the post in the morning as soon as I can.

Dont worry too much - all of the others look fine to me, some of the others have a light green patina but it looks stable to me so the coins should be fine.

Thank you all for helping me. I find it very difficult to identify there coins, especially the ones from the Constantine dynasty.

bobbyhelmet: Thanks for posting additional information about the approximate values of the coins.

#6 The mintmark is either 'BSISCV' which would make it Valentine or 'DeltaSISCV' which would make it Gratian. 'F' in left field. You can prob work out if its Valentine of Gratian with the coin in hand but I cant from the picture. The reverse is GLORIA ROMANORVM.

#11 Valens - D N VALENS P F AVG / GLORIA ROMANORVM - 375-385AD
'I' in left field '*' over Delta in right - Mintmart 'TES' Thessalonica mint. $5-10.

#32 Gratian - D N GRATIANVS P F AVG / GLORIA ROMANORVM - 367-375AD
It appears to have an 'O' or a 'Q' in the left feild and a '*' over something in the right field. The mintmark is prob Sisica. $5-10.

#20 looks cool - I like the lack of headgear on it.

I think the best thing you can do to ID the remaining coins is to group them together in sets of matching reverses and use the links echizento gave you or the Helvetica downloadable Excel spreadsheets from this site:

http://www.forumancientcoins.com/dane/

This way you can filter the sheets using mintmarks and characters in the fields etc.

#12 & 13 Constantius II - CONSTANTI-VS P F AVG / VICTORIAE DD AVGGQ NN - can read 'SIS' in both mintmarks but can not read them fully so both were minted in Siscia. $5-10.

#14 Valens - DN VALENS PF AVG / GLORIA ROMANORVM - mintmark '?SISC' Siscia mint $5-10.

#15 Valentine I - DN VALENTINIANVS PF AVG / GLORIA ROMANORVM - 'S' and '*' over 'F' Siscia mint $5-10.

#22 Constantius II - FL IVL CONSTANTIVS NOB C / GLORIA EXERCITVS - cant make out mint mark $5-10.

#33 I think this is Constantine I as the the brake in the legend is between a 'I' and an 'N' - cant really read much more than that. My guess is CONSTANTI-NVS MAX AVG / GLORIA EXERCITVS - again Siscia mint $5-10.

As far as the mintmark question goes the answer is no - I will take you through what I did using Helveticas tables as they are by far the best tool for identifying coins.

First of all I worked out the reverse type - 'GLORIA ROMANOVM' then found the required Excel spreadsheet. Click the link below to download it.

http://www.forumancientcoins.com/da...omanorum.xls

Make sure your scrolled all the way to the left and select the 'Emperor dragging' tab at the bottom as this is what is shown on your coin - the emperor dragging a captive with his right hand.

Then use the filter at the top of the 'Left field' column and filter the whole sheet to only show coins with an 'F' in the left field as we can clearly see an 'F' on your coin.

After doing this you are left with about 40 known examples of Valentine and Gratian coins with the 'F'. With a bit more filtering using the 'mint mark' - now known as BSISCV you will see the coin is a Valentine coin. The sheet will also help you to work out the characters you cant read as its gives you examples of known types. This is why I said Val or Gra depending on the mm - not because BSISCV automatically means Val.


As far as the prices go I just worked on the prices I used to sell them at on ebay - I was never really interested in Constantine and his clan and when selling a single IDed coin I would set the price at about £3GBP/$5US - sometimes I got slightly more if two people were bidding on one. In my experience collectors did not buy Constantine coins unless they were very, very high quality or very rare. Most were bought buy people who just wanted a Roman coin, any Roman coin and would happily pay £3 for one.

I also priced as if the coins were sold separately - I agree if you were to sell 10-20 of these then the price would go down a lot, prob to around £1 per coin. I also always got more money for a coin that was 100% IDed as people want to know the mint, emperor and date of the coin.


Not sure why most of these are from Siscia and not Sirmium - maybe the person you got them from could give you information on where they got them. Maybe the Sirmium mint was not active at the time these coins were minted? It could be a number of reasons, remember the Romans had strong Europe wide trade and much like the current Euro coins spread quickly throughout the Eurozone.


I dont buy or sell coins anymore, will start again soon but still enjoy IDing other peoples coins

They are good - I've collected Roman coins since I was about 10 but had no real idea how to ID them until the last 2 year or so.

All I had when I was a kid was a copy of David Sears 'Roman Coins' book - An excellent book but not great for a 10 year old! The internet has made is so much better, it was about 1990 when I started so very few people had internet access!

I would look through the book for hours and hours and still get it wrong most of the time lols.

I have a load of VBRS ROMA coins (they are plentiful and cheap like the Constantines) that I give away to people. Every time I show my collection to somebody new (from kids to OAPs) who does not collect they are amazed that they are real and think they must all be worth huge amounts of money. Its nice to look at their faces when you give them an almost worthless coin that they think should be in a museum

Its also nice to think you have got someone interested in a rewording hobby.