Looking through eBay I notice on some Roman imperial coins,Gallienus,Maximian and they might be others I sometimes see the letter S,E,B,H and so on in the reverse are these mint marks or are they a date letter like on tetradrachm's
Those letters indicate the officina that manufactured the coin. You can read more about it on this page from @dougsmit's website: http://www.forumancientcoins.com/dougsmith/officina.html
Tif first of all thanks for the reply notice some people in this forum take umbridge about replying to beginners guestions. Have looked at Doug's page the first two coins apply I don't mean letters in the exergue there seem to a letter in the field like Alexandrian tets but without the L. I don't think I'm allowed to post photo's of coins in eBay otherwise it would be easier to explain. Have identified all my Alexandrian tets except one which did by looking at the bust.
I've not noticed that phenomenon, although many of us do get annoyed when people flood the board with "what is this and what is it worth" posts when they've made no effort themselves and are mainly looking for ID so they can hopefully get more money for the coins on eBay. In some years with some rulers the officina marks are indeed in the fields rather than in exergue. Caveat: Imperials are not my strong suit, so hopefully others will come along to verify, dispute, or add to what I've said. You out there, @Roman Collector? @dougsmit?
The problem here is that not all mints and all reigns did things the same way. In some cases the officina (workshop) letter is in the field while others place it in exergue. Some issues have other letters in the fields and the purpose for some of them are mysteries to us. To answer your question we need to look up a particular coin and see what they were doing at that time and place. You mentioned Gallienus and Maximian so I'll show a couple of the many variations for just those two realizing that the other rulers between them did things 'their way'. Gallienus On this one workshop six is marked by VIin right field rather conflicting with the AVG of the encircling legend. This one is also shop six but here they used the Greek number S. This one has a B (Greek for 2) indicating shop 2. Maximianus This is the hardest one. The B for shop 2 is in exergue sandwitched between the XXI indicating the alloy used for the coin and KOY which was a code for the second group of letters in the Greek for Hercules. Don't ask me to make sense out of this. They did it the way they wanted to. Here is a coin showing workshop 9 from Antioch (they had that many shops in the large mint). Since the Greek number 9 was theta and considered unlikely then as some people today might avoid 13 the mint used a 5+4 (epsilon delta) to add up to nine. Another tricky one is this coin of the Tripolis mint that only used one workshop but put the city initials where a larger operation like Antioch would have put the shop letters. Let's remember that this hobby is a lifetime commitment to learning rather than one that is fully understood after reading a one paragraph synopsis. Below is a harder one for those here who want to work. Here is the S for shop two (secunda) or six (using the Greek numeral)? To know which you need to look at other coins and see how the listed the full set of six. Do you find coins with P (Prima) for one or do you find the first shop shown by Greek letter A? This is not my area of specialty and to have that answer I would have to look it up. That may be what you call 'umbridge ' but the fact is my job here is not to spoon feed answers but to enable those who are here to learn to be able to research the references (online or in books) and figure these out themselves. It is the old saying about not giving fish but teaching a man to fish so he will never be hungry again. This one will be too complicated for a level one beginner but these thing come in time if you want. Like TIF said, some of us do take umbridge at being asked to increase profit on eBay by making sellers sound smart. Those who are working on this subject find us more friendly.
Sometimes an exergual mark wants to become a field mark... Here's a pair of Gallienus Pegasus "Zoo" issues. The mark "H" is in the exergue of one, then drifts upwards in the other, trying to be free of the exergual constraints. They are RIC 283, with the drifting one a variety, from what I could find online.
Doug many thanks for your reply. It is a little hard for me to reply hopefully without being misunderstood what you say about sellers on eBay I agree answer is don' t reply to them when it comes to a question from a beginner like me a simple answer would suffice I.e. yes it's a mint mark or date or you don't know. As for being a lifetime hobby there is not many years left in the planet for me. I do like to read others posts and know there are many in the forum who are very knowledgeable without who's replies i would never find the answer to things that i ask so I hope I'm not being misunderstood. Coin collecting for me is something I like and must be affordable now and again I do like to learn but not to deep so hopefully you are not offended
In the 4th century, the field marks, rather than being officina designations, are often "controls" like this extensively "coded" Valentinian I centenionalis from Siscia: http://old.stoa.org/gallery/album82/A_06_SisV1_GloRom3?full=1 The officina designation ("B" in this case, 2nd officina) is part of the exergual mint mark which additionally has a "c" as part of the control code sequence. Siscia in the 360's is particularly known for a bewildering range of different exergual + field mark controls. Thessalonica is a close runner-up. In RIC IX, both have sections several pages long listing and assigning numbers to all the different combinations (45 known possible combinations for Siscia during this reign are listed in the Siscia charts in RIC IX. It's an old volume and there may be even more known now).
lehmansterms What chance a beginner. I think i did read somewhere that SC on the back of a coin meant proof that the coin was legal maybe thats a different thing.
Yes, as a beginner the learning curve can resemble an unscalable cliff to those just encountering it. Don't let the complexity which can be applied to the coinage deter you. You'll pick it up easily enough - and never hesitate to ask questions. Simplifying somewhat, "SC" = "Senatus Consultio" which means that the Æ coinage was produced by order/agreement of the Senate which had responsibility for the "small change" coin supply in the Imperial era. Members (usually junior members hoping to begin climbing the ladder) were named as aediles in charge of the coinage - a yearlong assignment to what was probably a not so great job which was the usual first step on the "cursus honorem". This had been a much more obvious situation in the Republican era. As the coinage was issued (in most cases) in addition to being in the aedile's name, the name of the family to which the junior senator/aedile belonged was always stated. The "Babelon" (RSC) system of numbering for Republican coinage is based on the families to which the aediles belonged. It happened fairly seldom, but the occasional emergency issue of silver would also be ordered by the senate and so a few issues of the Republican era AR denarii, quinarii and sestertii also have SC stated on them. In the Imperial era, the precious metal coinage came under the control of the emperor's administration, but responsibility for the base metals issues remained the province of the Senate. They took every opportunity to make sure a statement of this appeared on every coin for which they were responsible. At the time when inflationary pressures had caused the formerly silver antoninianus to be become basically a base metal coin, all the old, heavy "fractional" Æ denominations were first given short shrift in production, and soon thereafter discontinued altogether. The 260's were about the end of the line for regular production of sestertii, dupondii, asses, etc. which displayed SC somewhere in their reverse design. This is very different from the "control" field markings of the 4th & 5th centuries. Those control letters and symbols are approximately equivalent to the batch numbers printed on canned goods - it allowed the administration to identify which mint and workshop might have been responsible for underweight or poorly made coins. It also served to a lesser extent as a defense against counterfeiting as the sequences were known and if the combination of letters/symbols, whatever, was wrong and didn't fit into the series, the likelihood of a coin being of unofficial origin was much higher.
