I have two ancient coins here and I would like to know what they are. I think these coins are really cool but I just have know knowledge about them yet. But, I think ancients would be a fun aspect of this hobby worth exploring. I believe I won these coins in the Christmas contest a while back and these were the only 2 ancients that weren't identified. I believe they were contributed by Ardatirion. Anyway, if anyone could help me identify these two coins I would really appreciate it. Oh, the Lincoln Cent is there to give a size to the coins. I know what the Lincoln is.
I believe both are barbarous copies of Roman coins that tend to be found on what was then the edges of the Empire. The big class of these is represented by the larger of your coins and is called 'Barbarous Radiates'. These tend to copy coins of the Gallic Roman Emperors of the 270's AD and range from charming but slightly odd versions of the real thing to completely illegible and very tiny scraps of metal decorated with stick figures. The smaller of yours does not seem to have the Radiate crown expected on the above category but that makes no difference since people outside the regions where it was easy to get real coins were always willing to make their own and the copies could reproduce designs many years earlier than the period in which they were made. I can not ID your coins as to what they copied. For comparison I'll show a middle of the road copy of Tetricus II / Spes (here with retrograde legend on the reverse). In style, they get both much better and much worse than this one. Few will have a lot of legend but a little experience allows ID of the intent in many cases. The pattern on your smaller one may be the same Spes skirt shown on my coin but that is a wild guess more than an identification.
Since I've owned those precise coins before, I can tell you exactly what they are. The left coin is an imitation of an antonianus of Carausius, a usurper in Britain in the late 3rd century. Very fascinating period of time, I invite you to read more about him. The right coin is a small Greek bronze from Pantikapaeum, in the Bosporus. 150-120 BC. Head of Apollo right / bow. Macdonald 148.
By imitation do you mean it is a counterfeit? If so...was it made during the times when the coin actually circulated or is it a more modern creation?
hopefully someone will give you abetter explination than mine. but,its not counterfiet, just an imitation. there were counterfeits though.heres one that was orignally silver plated.
It could be called a contemporary counterfeit, but it was not intended to deceive. Thus, its an imitation. These are the guidelines I use: http://www.forumancientcoins.com/board/index.php?topic=1799.0
I'm embarassed that I missed the small coin being Greek but I'll stick my neck out again on the larger coin. Carausius is one of those rulers that comes in various degrees of barbarous. If you want to be hard line about it, all of his coins could be called unofficial since he was a usurper or pirate who took over Britain and Northern Europe at a time that the mainstream Emperors were occupied elsewhere. His coins were produced from several mints and some are a great deal more refined looking than others. For comparison, I'll post a poor condition specimen of a more mainstream style coin (I have no idea what the reverse was on yours but this is the common Pax type). When this coin was made, Carausius was attempting to legitimize himself and promoted himself as one of the three genuine Roman Emperors as is shown by the abbreviation for Augusti here using AVGGG (two rulers would have been AVGG using the standards of that day). As I said in my previous post, barbarous imitations could be made many years later than the coin copied (and the ID of this one to Carausius is not obvious to me - I'm not saying it is not but the coin is a bit far gone to be certain). The point is that coins were made to spend and coins in the far reaches of the empire could be required where there was no ready supply from outside. That produced a wide variety of imitations meant to be spent ranging from things we will disagree as to whether they are 'official' or not to things that were obviously amateur (to the point that I'd question the ID specifics). Looking at yours, I'm suspecting the coin is double struck but that should have been mentioned when you bought the coin as should the ID since it was known to the previous owner (how is it you had to ask here if the coins came with full ID?). I apologize for the error on the 'Greek' coin (perhaps a bit far north to be mainstream Greek but still not Roman for certain). The fake definitions link from Forvm posted above is important for all ancient collectors to understand. In US coinage, all mints look exactly alike except for a little letter called mintmark. Ancients don't work that way. Different mints have different styles and co-workers in the same mint might cut individual dies very differently. Some coins are obviously Friday afternoon quality while others are works of art. We do not even agree in every case where the mints were located or how many of them there were. Barbarous coins might be better considered like we consider Hard Times or Civil War tokens. They were made to fill a need when coins were in short supply. They are interesting. They may not be what you want if you are looking for a mainstream, genuine Roman coin.
