Good morning friends: My Secret Santa gifted me 2 bronze ancients. The problem is that I have no clue how to research them or figure out what they are. Can you help me with these and perhaps share how you research an ancient coin? Thanks in advance, Mike
They are both radiates (antoninianus denomination) from the mid third century. You can tell this by the base metal and the raggedy flan. The first is most likely Claudius II Gothicus, with an AEQVITAS AVG reverse type. There looks to be enough room for an IMP C CLAVDIVS AVG inscription and it just LOOKS LIKE him. The reverse is legible and shows Aequitas with her attributes -- scales and a cornucopiae. Something like this one: The second could be any number of rulers but it probably has a LIBERTAS AVG reverse, with Libertas standing, holding pileus (not visible) and scepter. It also could be LIBERALITAS, but I think that's less likely.
While I agree with the ID's as given by Roman Collector and see both as most likely Claudius II, let me address the second question. I believe the way most of us research ancient coins is to compare what we see to things we have experienced in the past. This can be in-hand experience over half a century or searching thousands of online images now available to us all. The problem is we need experience to know what to search so we avoid looking at thousands of things that can not be the answer. How do we get that experience? We look at better coins that have detail and can be read rather than the numismatic equivalent of lumps of coal. Secret Santa has you on the Naughty List. Usually, when I do not recognize the face and can't read the legend, I prefer to start with the reverse. In this case, I consider the portrait very similar to my mind's eye view of Claudius but were it not I would see which rulers are known to have used that reverse type. How do we know what to search for? Your first coin shows a figure holding a scales and cornucopia so you could search for those words and discover that the figure might be Aequitas or Moneta. The legend reads clearly enough that you know it is not Moneta. With the coin in hand, you also could eliminate rulers that did not issue coins that size. All this takes a millisecond after you handle a few similar coins so you can eliminate all but a few rulers like RC listed above. With better coins like the Aequitas that RC showed, we simply read the legends again applying the experience we gained from reading other coins that used similar letter styles. That will enable you not to be bothered so much by the A looking like an H or N and the V not joining at the bottom \ /. Your computer has hundreds of fonts a lot wilder that what we see on coins so you can learn a few more. It is not reasonable to expect yourself to recognize every type of ancient coin like you do with the handful of modern US coins. People like me who don't collect modern coins rely on being able to read the legends on all those new quarter types we spend. At my level of interest, I do not care to separate the states, parks etc. without reading the legends so you should start with ancients that have letters or detail and work up (or is it down) to IDing coins with 2% remaining detail if that is the goal you set for yourself. Most of us probably don't care to get all that familiar with the 'lump of coal' grade coins but we do have ID specialists for whom the search challenge is the most important part of the hobby. This is not where you start. Short answer: There is no short answer. You recognize the faces of a couple hundred family and friends based on having seen them a hundred times over the years. Some of us know a couple hundred 'extended family' AKA famous Romans (do we also want to study Greeks, Indians, Chinese or dozens of ancient civilizations you would not even recognize by name?). Each of these groups have more possible types and variations than do US moderns; some have a thousand times more. Admitting that there is going to be a few coins that you can not ID is part of the process. We deal with it. Your two coins were common and well known easily identified from decent specimens. There are some that will remain labelled 'Unknown' by collectors and a few cities and people completely unknown to history except for the coins they left behind. While you are learning, feel free to ask here in the Ancient section of Coin Talk. None of us can ID everything but, collectively, we do pretty well and are, as a whole, happy to help.
I wondered how to identify these also. A very daunting task for sure. Edited to remove the word easily.
Daunting - Yes Rewarding when you finally figure it out - Absolutely Addicting once you really get started down the path of the "Dark Side" -1000%
Thank you for the help! The ancients section of CT has never failed me. Thank you for the tutorial. I do understand that recognizing the coins is the key. I sincerely don’t believe that my Santa had me on the naughty list, but rather understood that I would appreciate them regardless. He really is quite a good friend.
