Hey everyone. Well interesting story here. I found this coin during my last tour in Iraq when I was stationed on the Iraqi/Syrian border. Heres how I came in possesion of this. Well before we got to our outpost they had engineers digging up farm fields for dirt so they could fill sandbags and fill Hesco baskets with the dirt. Well Fast forward to about 5 months into my deployment Im ontop of a old wheat mill and I see a bunch of sandbags that had been ripped open so I just go over and start kicking around in the dirt and something catches my eye, it turns out it was a coin. I am beyond disbelief because this coin just came out of the sandbag that had been filled by farm dirt 20 meters away. So I keep it in my wallet till the end of my tour and just pulled it out of my desk to take some pictures of it and see if anyone can help identify it. It looks like greek characters on it but I am no expert with coins. Here are the photos. I have never tried to clean or do anything to this coin. Here is a picture of the farm that the coin was pulled from.
Welcome to CoinTalk and thank you for your service. You may have better luck getting a proper identification of your coin in the World & Ancient Coins forum.
Hey everyone. Well interesting story here. I found this coin during my last tour in Iraq when I was stationed on the Iraqi/Syrian border. Heres how I came in possesion of this. Well before we got to our outpost they had engineers digging up farm fields for dirt so they could fill sandbags and fill Hesco baskets with the dirt. Well Fast forward to about 5 months into my deployment Im ontop of a old wheat mill and I see a bunch of sandbags that had been ripped open so I just go over and start kicking around in the dirt and something catches my eye, it turns out it was a coin. I am beyond disbelief because this coin just came out of the sandbag that had been filled by farm dirt 20 meters away. So I keep it in my wallet till the end of my tour and just pulled it out of my desk to take some pictures of it and see if anyone can help identify it. It looks like greek characters on it but I am no expert with coins. Here are the photos. I have never tried to clean or do anything to this coin. Here is the farm that the coin was dug up from.
Mazda, welcome to CoinTalk! Thank you for your service Someone will come along and help you with that coin, I'm sure. Lucy
I can't be sure but it looks like this one: Antiochia ad Orontem, Syria - Severus Alexander Butcher 482b (Paris 701) -Variant City-goddess, wearing turreted crown, veil, mantle, seated left on rock, river-god swimming below From this website: http://provincial-romans.com/provincial/Themes/CityGoddessesTyches.htm I can't find it in Wildwinds. Severus Alexander was the Roman Emperor AD 222-235.
I agree with Willieboyd2's ID I believe I see legend at the right ANDPOC which indicates Alexandros rather than Antoninos as the coin could be from the portrait and style. It is quite reasonable that the coin would have circulated in the area you found it. Compared to the example Willieboyd2 posted, the portrait looks older so I'd suggest it came from near the end of the reign (235 AD). In its condition, you will not get rich selling it but it is certainly a keeper to be passed down to the grandkids along with the story. Do not try to clean it. As these go it is as good as it will get.
Its not Antioch - the reverse legend is wrong. I would think Edessa in Mesopotamia, or one of the other mints in that region. I'll check some references later.
