More Constantine II Help

The Sol issues are some of my favourites.

Coin 1 is:

Constantine I
IMP CONSTANTINVS PF AVG - SOLI INVI-CTO COMITI - 309-310 Lugdunum
Its RIC VI Lyons 307/308/309 depending on the drapery, I cant really see it in the pic, in truth I'm pretty poor at identifying it anyway.

Coin 2 is:

Constantine I
IMP CONSTANTINVS PF AVG - SOLI INVIC-TO COMITI - 310 - Londinium
Its RIC VI Londinium 121a/122 again depending on the drapery.

Once again I bow to your expertise . I guess one of the reasons I couldn't attribute these coins is the fact I was looking under Constantine II. One of these days I'll get the two straight in my mind. Thanks a million. I owe you one (or a thousand - which is it?).

JW

Yes, I cleaned both of these coins, and, sad to say, the second coin was earlier on in my cleaning days. I took too much off including the patina. I made the same mistakes most everyone else does. I was impatient with the proper techniques and used harsh chemical and hard steel brushes. The first coin, though, I soaked in distilled water taking it out of the water only to take a very soft brush (child's soft toothbrush will do nicely) to it and then straight back into the water. This I do for two to three weeks. If this process produces the desired effect all the better. But most likely, and in the case of this coin, I had to place the coin in olive oil to soak, again brushing every so often. I do not remember how long I soaked/brushed this coin, but I think it was a normal length of time.

Generally, this process takes anywhere from two weeks to two to three months. I currently have a group of coins soaking in olive oil for nearly a year. The crustation on the coins is proving to be quite difficult, but I WILL prevail.

Regards to all,

JW

I was wondering if the second coin was electrolysis-ized. I'm still learning the difference between patina and metal. It doesn't help that I am color blind, making reds and browns and greens all blend together.

You can't undo the past, and the coin isn't ruined. Both coins still look good enough to me.


I'd also like to say to DougSmit!

-wheatiefan

Perhaps a little off topic but the way the two coins are side by side and their closeness in age gives an excellent opportunity to add a few points on the style of the busts.

If you look at the underside of Constantines nose on the lyons coin (left) you can see, where his nostrils are the line of the underside of the nose has a definite downward trend, perhaps 20 degrees from the horizontal. The bust is also quite compact and for the want of a better word 'bulbus', these are definite traits of that mint. They can overlap slightly with Rome and Trier but Rome certainly tends to have a different style of nose bridge. A much more 'Roman nose'.

The London coin on the right shows a larger bust and in general they are lower and softer in relief than those of the other mints.

In general London and Trier produced the better examples of these Sol coins, larger, heavier, general look and even though its subjective 'more attractive busts'. Ostia and Ticnium also produced attractive coins but in smaller numbers and on slightly smaller flans. Ostia obverses look a lot like Rome coins due to their close geographical locations.

In general Lyon and Rome produced the smallest coins out of all of the mints - sorry for 'going on' but thought it was quite interesting.

BTW - These coins were produced for Contsantine II, albeit in small numbers in London, Trier and Siscia circa 317-318 - these issues were often matched with a very similar Crispus Sol coin.

Nice coin. Makes mine look, well, not so. No really, a very nice example.

JW