Unknown Roman Set (5 coins bought together)

Thank you for that! This was seems to be bronze and really thick. The photo didn't really do it justice. I need to work on my macro photography skills.

 

Log in or Sign up to hide this ad.

Personally it would make things easier for me if there were a few subforums. Like Roman, Greek, Identification, Artifacts for example.

This part I'm really struggling with. Like I've found that the letters are all bunched up without spaces, yet when I search, the letters seem to have spaces. How does one know where to put these spaces? It makes searching pretty tough. Like I found if I searched COSVPP I might get nothing, but COS V P P does.

 

I LOVE Roman sestertii -- they are big and chunky!!!

I know. That's one of the hardest things at first, but with a little practice, it gets easier over time because you'll get a feel for when one word ends and another begins. Getting a good beginner's book, such as Wayne Sales' Ancient Coin Collecting, III: The Roman World can be very helpful.

Putting spaces between words in manuscripts wasn't invented until the middle ages!!!

 

Wait, what? How on Earth could they read it? It would take forever. That's incredible.

 

Again, this hobby takes time and practice makes perfect.
And no, I am not perfect, I am still a beginner.
When I decided to collect ancient coins I was reading discussions between collectors and frankly I was wondering if I will ever be able to identify a coin myself.

I didn't understand how did people managed to read legends, especially when the font is difficult to read for a 21st century person. AND, of course, when legends are partially missing because of wear/off center strike.

I was also amazed about collectors recognizing portraits and deities because of some attributes/objects. Then it started to work for me also.

If you see a reverse with somebody holding a rudder and a cornucopiae then you will know who that is.

Also when I said I want to learn something about Greek coins, that was almost a fresh start because of a different alphabet - even more difficult to read.
I don't study other cultures, at least not yet.

Seeing other coins, on the Internet and in hand, will make things easier day by day.

What I used to do (and I still do sometimes) - was to take a closed auction and browse through coins. I did not read the description - I was just looking at the pictures, trying to read the legends, trying to figure who is the ruler, what is the obverse and then I was comparing to what the auction house wrote. When I was stuck, I was reading their description/attribution.

I will leave you here a pic of a coin, one of my first. Probably my best denarius. I bought it in a lot of 4 coins without attribution. I had no idea who the emperor is, who is on the reverse and the legends were also blurry for me. But I identified it myself using the websites I mentioned earlier. This would be a nice exercise for you.

 

Thank you for this. I'll give it a try.

 

Yes, it's tough! I had to read stuff like this in my paleography class in grad school decades and decades ago. All capital letters. Virtually no punctuation at all. No spaces between words. All those things that make reading easier were invented centuries after our coins were struck!!!

Codex Sinaiticus, a mid 4th century Greek manuscript.



Codex Harleianus, a late 6th century Latin manuscript:

 

You just blew my mind man. I guess it's something you get used to. Like when i read something I don't read each letter, I just mentally understand the word. I guess their minds must have been able to do the same like a Word Search puzzle