I'm trying to attribute & appraise this denarius. Any help would be appreciated because, as I mentioned earlier, I'm fairly new to Ancients. It's the only recognizably silver piece in this collection of Roman, Byzantine, & Cilician Armenian pieces. (Where is the line generally drawn between ancient and just plain old? 1096? 1453? 1492?) Anyway, if I'm reading the legend and recognize the portrait correctly, this 19mm silver is a denarius of Severus Alexander. I found the same reverse (Libertas holding an abacus & cornucopia) on a coin with a slightly different obverse portrait. Is this a mule? Is the other coin a mule? Or are the obverse differences attributable to something else (like a provincial mint or celebratory/commemorative issue)? And here's the comparison piece I found:
Looks to be this: Severus Alexander Denarius. 229 AD. IMP SEV ALEXAND AVG, laureate head right / LIBERALITAS AVG IIII, Liberalitas standing left with coin counter and cornucopaie. RSC 133. https://www.wildwinds.com/coins/ric/severus_alexander/t.html
Severus Alexander coins are plentiful, and as such, do not command high prices. This one I purchased in 2013 for under $50. That being said, your coin, although worn with porous surfaces is not a bad example. You can check out Vcoins to see what retail prices these coins bring nowadays.
In the spirit of learning, it is Liberalitas on the coin reverse, as opposed to Libertas. She represents the generosity of the emperor giving the citizens a dole. As such, she holds a counting board for quickly retrieving the set number of coins for individual distribution rather than an abacus. Our own @Roman Collector had a thread about her here. Edit: The reverse of the first coin also ends with IIII representing the 4th occasion of Severus Alexander's liberality. Where the comparison coin does not have any numbers and would represent his 1st.
I would agree. The obverse is decent but with so many Sev Alex examples available, it's average. And the reverse had a worn die. Overall though it's a solid coin.