i was browsing when i found this coin in NumisBids, they say the coin was used as a shaped token/game piece: Lot 539 Magnentius. AD 350-353. Æ Centenionalis (18mm, 4.16 g, 6h). Converted into a gaming token(?). Uncertain mint. Bareheaded, draped, and cuirassed bust right / Large Christogram; A-ω flanking. Brown patina, reddish earthen encrustation, cut into a cog-shaped token/game piece. Fine. Interesting contemporary use of a mid 4th century Roman Bronze coin. Thomas,
Welcome to the CT Ancients Forum, @Thomas c ! That’s an interesting piece. My first thought was that it was currency from a mobile military field mint to pay garrison troops but the gaming token theory sounds good too. I always liked serrated edge (bottle cap) coins.
A Chi Rho Christo gram on a gaming token? I wonder what that says about the odds of winning improving. I would have chosen a coin with Tyche or Fortuna but by Magnentius I guess the times were a'changing.
It's a legitimate coin, but the serrations were added later. Here's what it looked like initially: https://www.acsearch.info/search.html?id=5992664 As for what the reason was for the alteration, well, that's anyone's guess. But a gaming token is certainly possible. It would be reasonable to assume that the serrations were added much later, after the coin had lost its official recognition of value and was no longer accepted for payment by merchants or the government.
When u s large cents are done like this they were used to crimp pies. I don't know if ancients made pies or P-zones like Pizza Hut sells. Cool piece.
I suspect there was a utilitarian use, as @harley bissell proposes. Williams Sonoma Fluted Pastry Cutter Here is a coin with similar edge markings, an extremely rare bronze of Bukara or Paykend: Bukhara Soghd, circa 720 AD, AE, Paykend/Paikend, 18mm Obv: facing head Rev: dancing man tamgha. cf. Central Asia » Soghd » Bukhara 'Dancing man' tamgha cf. http://orientalnumismaticsociety.org/JONS/Files/ONS_158.pdf There were no coins in this shape issued in the same century and no reason to make this look like a centuries-earlier distantly issued coin.