I ordered my 1st Ancient coin a while ago. A Gallienus I bought for $5. Here is a link to the thread about that coin. https://www.cointalk.com/threads/got-my-1st-ancient-coin.307693/ The coin showed up in my mail box today and there was a bonus coin with it. Woohoo 2 for the price of one! Here is the Bonus coin. This one is tiny! Now let me see if I got this right The obverse shows a Helmeted Roma facing left, while the reverse shows a She-Wolf facing left with Romulus and Remus (suckling?) below. Possibly struck under Constantine I. That's about all I could come up with. Nailing down an actual RIC is a little beyond my skill set at this point. How did I do? Thanks for looking...Mont Oh yea I ordered a Salonina from this same seller today to go with the Gallienus. Can't wait until that one comes in.
You did what can be done. To get an RIC number you must have the mintmark which is off flan on your coin under the twins. I suspect your coin is an unofficial ancient imitation. I am away from my books but do not recall the crescent at the op which might ID the mint city but the style and small flan really makes me suspect it is barbarous.
So this would be a counterfeit? If I understand the term "Barbarous" this is a copy made possibly during the 3rd century?
How tiny is tiny? What is the diameter of your example in mm? I have a very tiny wolf and twins: Helena (imitative) AE 8mm 0.50g Obv: Helena (The portrait could also be Fausta.) Rev: Wolf and twins There seems to be no catalog number or reference work for these little coins...
4th century = 300rds We don't know how long after the original the copies were made. I'd guess within a decade or so but that is a guess. I prefer the theory that people on the edges of the empire were aware of how coins helped in trade but did not have access to enough 'real' ones so they made copies to circulate in commerce. I reserve 'counterfeit' for coin made to fool someone into thinking that the coin was official but barbarous is a higher class item: "money of necessity". In the US, we had California gold, Hard Times and Civil War tokens when there were coin shortages. I don't call those counterfeits.
DOH! I always mess that up. Thanks for the info. I was thinking counterfeit might me too harsh a term for these after reading a little more about them. You nailed it with "Money of Necessity". This explains what these are well.
There is a very instructive article by Pierre Bastin 'Imitations of Late Roman Bronzes 318-363', in Museum Notes 30 (journal of the American Numismatic Society), New York, 1985, p. 143-177 with 58 photographic plates in the rear. My copy is a photographic reprint (?) obtained cheaply in the USA. (There are several other interesting articles in this issue, about Maxentian hoards, about pseudo-autonomous Provincial Roman issues and about Kushano-Sasanian coinage). Bastin deals with many aspects and ascertains many questions still unanswered. A few Urbs Roma imitations are depicted (pl. 16-19), the OP coin is much like pl. 19. Ed Snible's Helena/Fausta & Wolf is not in the article. Bastin estimates the date of the Urbs Roma coins as earliest: end of Constantine the Great's reign and latest: 342-348. @MontCollector, could you tell where this coin may come from - France, Britain, Austria, Eastern Europe for instance? Official Roman coins may be found anywhere, but the unofficial imitations like this rarely stray far from where they were manufactured, for they had no value outside a local region.
Not sure. I bought a Gallienus off a collector(from another coin forum) in North Carolina and this one came with it.
