Please could anyone tell me anything about any of these coins I got recently. Pic1 is one side and pic2 is the other side of same coins. I believe they are Roman. Many thanks, Nic.
The emperors depicted on the first coin is Constantius II, the next two are Contantine the Great, with the second of those being from the London mint. The bottom left is probably the Gallic emperor Tetricus I, though the name isn't on the flan. Given the small size, this may be what's referred to as a "barbarous radiate." These coins were minted in the northwestern parts of the empire at the end of the third century due to a coin shortage. They were the products of local unofficial mints. The second from the right depicts Claudius Gothicus, and the reverse indicates that it was issued postumously. That one might be barbarous as well. If you want full identifications, you might want to poke around Wildwinds or the appropriate RIC spreadsheets here.
Thanks so much for the help and pointers of where to learn more. I've been reading about the barbarous radiate coins, very interesting. Also interested that they issued coins posthumously in respect of a previous ruler, I'm afraid I couldn't work out what it was on the reverse of the coin that indicated this, could anyone enlighten me? Thanks again, Nic.
What's on the reverse is an alter with "Consecratio" written around it. "Consecratio" refers to the consecration of an emperor, which only happens after their death. Here's a bit more info.
A hint: When stumped trying to figure out the obverse of a coin, try starting with the reverse. In this case the small flan and barbarous look tells us that the coin may be a Barbarous Radiate. 95% of the Barbarous Radiates are in the name of a very few rulers including one that was Consecrated and had posthumous coins issued both officially and by the makers of the barbarous copies. Therefore a consecration reverse on a barbarous is 99.9% certainly Claudius II. The trick works on many common coins. There may be 200+ persons on the obverse of Roman coins but perhaps only 2% of them issued coins with certain reverses. That will narrow down a search. All three of your top row coins are easily narrowed down in this way to just a couple rulers so they could be identified without reading the obverse legends (fortunately very clear on your nice specimens). Before someone calls me on the error: Yes there are very rare eagle reverse consecration coins of Victorinus but the chance of finding one approaches zero and the chance of finding a barbarous copy of one is small enough that we can rule out the possibility unless you can read the obverse legend clearly.
