This late Roman has been bugging me for a couple of days now. Its cleaned up nicely but the book I use to help ID my coins (Aorta) has left me out in the cold. I know it should be an easy one but I'm fairly new in regards to attributing coins and find it a bit tricky at times. (but determined that that will change over time) I hope you guys don't find this post boring but I'm loving this fascinating hobby even if I'm still a "newbie" thanks in advance to anyone taking the time to read this.
The letters A and H on late Roman bronzes tend to look the same-- A looks like H. I think your coin's legend is DNVALENTENIANVS; Valentinian II according to the resource I used. The reverse legend is REPARATIO REIPVB, although the second word is off flan on your coin. There is a great website for attributing late Roman bronzes, Tesorillo. You can search by reverse type (handy line drawings!), reverse legends, rulers, obverses, etc. It's well worth bookmarking . There are many ways to approach ID using Tesorillo. Here is one such page relevant to your coin: http://www.tesorillo.com/aes/149/149i.htm
Thanks for your help, and a bigger thanks for the link! Iol I need all the help I can get. .....I've always been a bit shy to ask for help about "common" coins as most of you guys are at a level that I can only dream about at the moment so thanks for taking the time to reply. Right I'm off to check out that web page link you gave me. Cheers Jason
Common coins can often be more interesting than they appear at first sight. Case in point: your coin has a botched obverse legend, which probably contributed to your attribution difficulties. On these types, Valentinian II's obverse inscriptions read either DN VALENTINIANVS IVN PF AVG, or without "junior" DN VALENTINIANVS PF AVG. (With the second legend, father and son are differentiated by broken and continuous inscriptions.) Your coin reads DN VALENTINIVS, or something like that, er...oops, oh well, V...no wait, what am I doing? Oh hell, let's just scratch out PF AVG and be done with it.
