Romulus Augustus Bronze Coin Die

I would think that if you just can’t stop finding impossibly rare coins, you could probably afford a $7 loupe from Amazon, and you could take a picture that looks like more than fuzzy dot.

Here’s my very own Romulus Augustus, or is it? May as well be, if I squint hard enough I think I can see the Disney logo as well.

 

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I even have Romulus Augustulus' own signet ring :



But of course it is a late 18th or early 19th c. probably Italian forgery...

 

Without seeing the reverse or knowing the dimensions, I believe what you have there is LEO I. I see DNLEOA. The DN is weak, the LE is half off the flan, but the OA is fairly clear. It may be the lion reverse, which is why you probably already know what it is. It is probably closer to 11 mm and around half a gram heavier than mine and it was never repeatedly pounded by an object that resembled a counterstamp.

And you already know where you can put your mouse ears.

Any other tests?

PS- I had a LEO I lion reverse, but it was stolen with the rest of my possessions in 2007.

 

I did the attribution without using a reference. After checking, I realize the O may not be on flan and what I thought was an O may be very crude PF. I also see most of the V following the A at the end. I'm dying to know whether I'm right or not. I'm also assuming you already know what this is. If I'm wrong don't tell me what it is, just show me the reverse and see if I can figure it out.

 

Try again!

 

Dang, the reverse was no help at all. Absolutely a beautiful cross though, and good images (which was your original intent). My next best guess based on what I can see of the legends would be Marcian.

If that's not it then I will admit defeat on the attribution. There's no mint, most of the legend appears to be mangled, on the edge or off flan. If it were mine, it would probably end up in the IDK pile. Who is it and how do you know?

Getting back to the image issue. I have almost 50 images of my coin on my hard drive, taken by me, my wife, my daughter, and her husband on 4 different camera (phones). None are really any good. I have tried using a makeshift setup with books and a bottlecap and the camera's delay feature. I have tried shining light directly onto the coin, I have tried using flash. Literally every thing I could think to try, but no bueno. The coin is so tiny and thin and the surface so rough. I've even thought about hiring a professional photographer to use a high res/high def camera on it, but probably can't afford it. I just got a new phone last month with a strong zoom feature that I haven't tried yet. It's worth a shot anyway.

 

See this thread of mine:
https://www.cointalk.com/threads/extreme-close-ups.375078/

Maybe get a $10 cell phone camera lens and see what you can get out of it.

 

The smallest coin I own is this 10mm tiny guy. Ironically, the smaller the coin, the better the pictures through a 20x loupe tend to be. Go figure.

 

Honestly, no clue. I was figuring Arcadius or Honorius due to the portrait looking rather like a child, but, tough one.

 

I'm surprised that you don't know.

There are traces of the legend. I gave up after just an hour or so on wildwinds. If I spent enough time pouring over all the resources, like RIC vol 10 (or possibly 9), and the BMC, etc., I might eventually figure out the emperor. Matching the bust and/or cross AND lining up the bits of legend that remain to a coin's image in a reference (basically "die-matching") would be gravy, but it does happen sometimes.

 

I'm so broke right now I can't even afford that. I drive for a living and the A/C in my truck went out. This Texas summer has been too hot to drive without A/C (triple digits all day, every day for a month or more). It's gonna cost around $400 to fix.

 

I think it is Valentinian III-- D N VALEN AVG. No mintmark is RIC X Rome 2145, rated as common.

 

Victor, that sounds about right. Thanks!

ALSO - why is VIII said to be common, when on the market they are very hard to find and very expensive? The cheapest Valentinian III, Buy it Now on eBay is nearly $100. The cheapest one on VCoins is $35. Meanwhile, atrocious little bronzes of the other late emperors are had for $10 or less, even in good condition. What gives? It drives me nuts!

 

I think that in RIC-speak "common" is the rating given to any issue where 20+ is noted during the tally of the British Museum's own collection. And there probably are bucketfuls of Val 3 AE4s there. I would call them - as a class - quite common also. Remember the important distinction between absolute and relative rarity.

Rasiel