Hello all. I am currently looking to acquire a Gordian III Antoninianus with the below description. Ancient Roman Silver Antoninianus of Gordian III Struck 238-244 AD Obverse: IMP GORDIANVS PIVS PF AVG, Radiate, draped and cuirassed bust right Reverse: IOVI STATORI, Jupiter standing with scepter and thunderbolt RIC 84 21mm , 4.3gm ----------------------------- I typically only collect English medieval coinage, but decided to delve into some ancients again so I am no expert on the matter. I've done a little research, and I haven't found this type of coin that matches the exact diameter and weight. Closest examples I have came across was a 21mm 3.61g and 21mm 5.62g. Does this appear to be a genuine coin and does anyone with knowledge of this coin know if the weight and size is acceptable? PS: I know Gordian III coins are quite common and I'm not really asking par say based on the fact that I'm concerned over the couple bucks I may lose out on, rather than learning from people with knowledge on the matter so I can be informed in the future. Thanks!
FIRST PORTION DELETED AS OP EDITED HIS POST AND POSTED A DIFFERENT COIN FROM THE ONE HE INITIALLY POSTED. If you dont care about denarius vs antoninianus you can probably get some nice ants of Gordian III for $35 to $50 USD. Here is some $35 Gordian ants And here are some I paid $45 to $50 for each By the way, the images are quite dark for contrast. All of them are very bright coins with excellent surfaces. Hopefully that will give you an idea of what you can get for what money.
I see you edited the image. The second coin is much better. I think $50-$75 is not out of the question for such a coin.
I wouldn't pay more than $40 for a Gordian III ant, but as Sallent said, 50-75 is not out of the question.
Well, $50 to $75 is definitely online dealer or vcoins pricing. I won't deny that at auction or by buying from someone you know, you might be able to do better.
There's some nice ones here (Marc B's): https://mrbcoins.com/cgi-bin/category.pl?id=312 Like this one: https://mrbcoins.com/cgi-bin/lotinfo.pl?id=40858
You can get very nice Gordian III antoniniani for $50 or so a piece. It would be a great project to collect all of the his reverse types.
Not that close, I only have 13 different reverses for Gordian III in silver. I've taken a break for now from the pursuit of more Gordies because I'm trying to hunt certain key emperors from the 2nd, 3rd, and 4rth centuries that I want and I'm still missing. Plus I also want to finish my "12 Caesars Imperial-only $3000" Project", which consists of a challenge I set out for myself of completing the 12 Caesars using Imperial-only lifetime portrait coins, and no dual portrait coins allowed just to make it a little harder still (must be one individual lifetime imperial portrait per Caesar)...with the goal being to obtain or upgrade to the best possible samples for each Caesar while staying under that budget constraint. Its been a very challenging and fun project, and I want to see it to completion before continuing with Gordie III. Here is what I've got so far for around $2,200 total: Still need an Imperial Nero and Galba, and possibly an upgrade for Tiberius. Not such an easy project after all...am I right? Definitely has required tons of patience and a few lucky breaks to have kept within the set of criteria I imposed on myself, and still have $800 left over to work with this far along into the project. Julius Caesar alone can be a deal breaker unless you get a few lucky breaks and get a killer price on one of his portrait lifetime denarii.
I really like Gordian III silver coins - they can be quite appealing and cheap. In my constant bottom-feeding on eBay I got a IOVI STATORI reverse for $5.01 this February, a freakish bargain. At any rate, I rarely pay more than $20 for a Gordian III antoninianus, but you have to do a lot of hunting to get them that low; $40-$50 is probably a more realistic dealer price. Here's my $5.01 example; the coppery adhesions you see are on the surface - my guess is this was buried with some coppers: Gordian III Antoninianus (241-243 A.D.) Rome Mint (9th, 10th & 11th issues, 2nd Officina) IMP GORDIANVS PIVS FEL AVG Radiate bust rt., draped & cuirassed. / IOVI STATORI Jupiter standing front, head right holding sceptre and thunderbolt. RIC 84; RSC 109. (3.47 grams / 23 mm) This is a IOVI CONSERVATORI example, which was $22. This Jove is a bit harder to find than the STATORI type, I think: Gordian III Antoninianus (238-239 A.D.) Rome Mint (1st issue, 2nd Officina) IMP CAES M ANT GORDIANVS AVG, radiate bust right / IOVI CONSERVATORI Jupiter stdg. with scepter & thunderbolt, Gordian left w. attributes of Spes. RIC 2; Cohen 105 (3.83 grams / 20 mm)
Yea, when I first uploaded the image, I accidentally uploaded a Serverus Alexander coin I was looking at as well and realized it was not the Gordian iii coin I was describing
I'd say around 22 to 24 mm, and usually around 4.25g in weight, though I've seen genuine examples fluctuate in weight for as little as 3g to as much as 5.50g. Usually the more underweight ones will have some corrosion or crystalization issues and wear.
As Sallent says, there are a lot of variations with these. A great place to find a "quantitative analysis" of a particular issue is the OCRC site. They crunch the numbers on the examples in their database. For RIC 84 Gordian III they have a lot of examples, and here are their results: Quantitative Analysis Average measurements for this coin type: Axis 8.35 Diameter 22.23 Weight 4.26 http://numismatics.org/ocre/id/ric.4.gor_iii.84 In their examples, one from the University of Graz is only 3.12 grams, but one from the American Numismatic Society weighs 5.39 grams. And everything in between. There have been other posts here on the topic too: https://www.cointalk.com/threads/variable-weights-of-double-denarius.259110/ A while back I posted two examples of RIC 84 in my collection that vary wildly in weights. This was part of a wider discussion: https://www.cointalk.com/threads/so-i-bought-a-gordian-iii-today.304825/page-2 Here is my part of that older thread: Here is Gordian III situation I wanted to run by you all. Below are 2 Gordian III's with the JOVI STATORI reverse (RIC 84). The dark one (on the left) I bought almost 30 years ago from a dealer in Ohio. The other one (right) I got late last year off eBay (it was apparently an ex-Littleton Coin offering). Here is the dilemma: Dark toned example weight: 4.18 grams Shiny example weight: 1.82 grams. I'd say the shiny one is a fake, but nothing else about it says "fake" to me - the flan is indeed kind of thin for these, but the style looks good, the strike looks good. It has very little wear, so I can't blame wear for the low weight. Anyway, here they are:
Looks legit to me. Stlye is right, and the details seem too crisp for it to be a cast copy. If it's a fake, it's a good one.
Thank you, gsimonel. I sort of feel the same way about it. My guess is that it must have crystalized on the inside, leaving decent surfaces - but underneath a honeycomb of crystalization. Sometimes this happens - I have an Alexander the Great drachma like that (an edge chip reveals the crystalized interior, although the surfaces otherwise look good). Anyway, that's the only way I can figure it.
