Constantine II GLORIA EXERCITVS from Cyzicus - Help Please

Still learning about LRBs, and have a long way to go.

From a new unattributed eBay lot, I got this Constantine II (I think) AE from Cyzicus that I cannot figure out. It is fairly legible, but the elements are not coming together for me - mostly because of the headgear which appears to be a rosette-diadem. I've never owned a rosette-diademed anything, so maybe I am wrong:

Obv: DN CONSTAN-TINVS P F AVG Head of Constantine II, rosette-diademed, right

The closest I can come is for Constantius II (not Constantine II) - but I see the extra N in the obverse legend, so I think mine has to be Constantine II.

http://numismatics.org/ocre/id/ric.8.cyz.17

When searching Constantine II for reverse type in OCRE, I can't find a rosette-laureate:

http://numismatics.org/ocre/results...ine+II"+AND+fulltext:GLOR-IA+AND+fulltext:P+F



The mintmark is, I think, SMK(A?)Є



If that's not a rosette-laureate, what is it?

Thank you!

 

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Yup, that would be a laurel and rosette diademed bust. If it's SMNA rather than SMKA it would be RIC VIII Nicomedia 7.

 

Thank you, zumbly! Yep, I read the mintmark wrong.

I really appreciate your help.

 

You’re welcome! The lettering on the mintmarks of some of these LRBs can fiendishly hard to tell apart.

 

You should check out Dane's excel lists. You can filter results, for example, with this coin after filtering the obverse legend and bust type, you are only left with three mints, none of which is Cyzicus. You can also immediately cross off Constantinople as a choice. You are only left with a possibility of Nicomedia or Heraclea, with Nicomedia being the most common.

http://www.catbikes.ch/coinstuff/coins-ric.htm

 

Yes, I agree - fiendish!

My other problem here - in addition to misreading the "N" - was I gave up too soon because the mintmark started with an "S." I keep forgetting that the initial letter isn't always an indicator of place. I'm learning, but slowly.

Thanks again for your help.

 

Thank you Victor - I was not aware of that site.

I was filtering using "SMK" which obviously led me down the wrong path - bust type would have been much more successful, indeed.

 

I use them a lot. If you are sure of anything you can start weeding them out. Great reference tool.