ANCIENTS - A common Soldiers with Standards with nice detail

well they must be bloody well kept secrets here.....

 

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Fantastic coin, Martin!! (oh, and the rest of you guys as well)

... I don't think I have one of these examples (*rats*)

 

gorgeous indeed. it it didn't have that little die break or whatever there at the top of the reverse it would be flawless.

OH MAN...I WANT TO BE IN A SECRET COIN CLUB!!

or maybe i aaaaaaaaalready am.....I'll never tell.

 

Wonderful coin ! Heres my nicest

 

Since these coins were issued from so many mints for so many years in the names of so many men, we have quite a variety of styles as mentioned but also quite a variety of quality even within the same mint. Randy's coin above strikes me as interesting beyond its grade in the dress of the soldiers and the quality of the rosette diadem portrait. How many pay attention to coin style as well as or even more than grade?

My favorite coins of this group are my Dalmatius with exceptional portrait and the pair of Constans genitive legend issues. None are perfect specimens but I find them interesting. In addition to the portrait style, Dalmatius uses the early spelling of his name. Constans was so young when his first coins were issued that they were given the unusual legends "of Constans, Blessed Caesar". Since this happened right when the mint was switching between two and one standards designs, we have both to collect.


Because of the short period they were issued, two standards coins of Constans are harder to find from other mints. The only other one, a Constantinople, I have shows the fancy military bust so often given to very young Caesares. Can the rest of you fill out the mint set of Constans' 2 standards coins?

 

I'll chip in Alexandria...

 

Excellent coin and stately portrait of the ~12 year old. Alexandria usually has interesting style.

 

Siscia with BEA C legend...

 

Constans - AE3
Obv:– FL IVL CONSTANS NOB CAES, Laureate, draped & cuirassed bust right
Rev:– GLORIA EXERCITVS, Two helmeted soldiers standing with spears & shields, facing two standards between them
Minted in Trier (Palm Branch //TRS)
Reference:– RIC VII Trier 560 (R3)

 

Roma. A weakly-struck coin, but it's interesting to compare the short, squat style to the tall, lean designs of Alexandria. This one is bordering on an AE4 at 15mm, so that may account for the crowding. That's all I've got for these.

 

Doug already posted Constantinople, so this doesn't help complete the mint set - it's just my example. Looks like if I put my mind to it, I could collect all the mints in short order...

 

Wow JA => apparently you're all about these standards-coins, eh? (nice group of stuff)

 

I like them a lot, and I can't really tell you why. They are easy to collect, for one thing, although I haven't tried hunting down some of the scarcer issues.

 

Here is a Constantinopolis obv. with a single standard rev.

Can anyone present an example with two standards on the rev., any mint?

 

Yours is Arles mint John....SCONST

 

Heres my old not in RIC Dalmatius.....

 

If you ever do try hunting down some of the rare issues, give me a call John, I have over 2000 GE's.....

 

I have to admit I have never even given these soldiers with standards a second look. Usually when going through piles of LRB these along with votives were the first ones I ignored. They can be somewhat interesting looked at like this.

 

Yes, of course, sorry! Well, maybe I'll just have to go buy a CONS.

 

I was only half-joking when I suggested a study should be done. I don't know of any research on these that's as extensive as say, the cataloging of FH varieties. If you look at the standards on this page alone, you can see a tremendous variance in the styles. Would a study of thousands of samples yield certain patterns?