This coin has been passed down from my uncle to me, he found this coin in a field in France when he was a child. Can someone tell me what coin it is and how much its worth?
Roman, certainly. By style, it appears third or (more likely) fourth century AD. Unfortunately, the lettering on these can be difficult to read even on a coin in as nice shape as yours, so someone else may need to tell you more.
4th century Roman, looks like Maximianus to me, but its not my specialty. Post it in the ancient section and I bet you get your answer in 5 minutes.
Agreed on the Maximianus (probably c. 306-308); looks to be a little scarcer than average by his standards. Maximianus was from Gaul, so it makes sense from a geographical standpoint as well. My Roman coin reference is an almost 40-year old copy of Sear, so I'm not about to guess a value. This coin has nice detail, but the amount of verdigris worries me.
Maximianus. Æ Follis. London mint. Struck Summer AD 307. Laureate and cuirassed bust right / Genius standing left, holding patera and cornucopia; PLN. RIC VI 85. The green encrustation appears to be stable and no cause for concern. I'd value it at around $50 in that condition.
There you go OP, definitive attribution from someone who is much better than I to know. The london mint makes a more special coin, btw.
It's really not too impressive a feat. Any decent numismatist with a good library can do it. And since all I had to use for this was the RIC spreadsheet for the GENIO types, you could've handled it too.
Yeah, but I was doing it without books and I don't specialize in these. If I can hijack the thread a second, when did they start using DN? I was thinking before it was with the Christian emperors, so that is what threw me at first on this coin, since its before Milvian bridge.
I believe Probus had that title, that may be the first. Now you don't quite need the books: www.catbikes.ch/coinstuff/coins-ric.htm
Thanks both for the link and the clarification. I have no idea why, but I always associated Dominus Nostrum(sp?) with Christian emperors.
