To all Constantinian aficionados: I was thinking this is 337-361 Mint Emperor Constantius II Imperial Rome Bronze Roman Coin Soldier Spearing Fallen Captive Reverse with B to left, apparently scarce ? But after a long search I have found No Other Examples online with a B to left.... so Im thinking maybe this is another Emperor? Or did I get lucky and get a scarce coin here? Thanks very much! with the B to left, Im thinking this may be another Emperor?
Yes, it's Constantius II. Your mintmark is SMTS and it is from Thessalonica. Specifically RIC VIII Thessalonica 189 and it is rated as very common.
I would take the word of @Victor_Clark over mine. This is his collection focus and he is a great resource. I’m working on a project about Christian symbolism with the typical starting point of the Milvian. I should get in touch with him soon.
thank you! any thoughts on the B to left? I just did a quick search and they are all A's or the greek letter I dont have on my keyboard......
there are 5 different workshops possible for this issue-- A,B, Γ, Δ and Є if you want to see more examples of workshop B, look here-- https://www.nummus-bible-database.com/ there are lots.
We need to emphasize that this is a very unusual issue in that it is the only case where a falling horseman had the workshop letter in the field rather than as part of the exergial mintmark. I cut and paste from my webpage on the subject. Pay attention to the pile of six coins where the field letter is the workshop BUT don't overlook the larger coin just to the left where B indicates a weight standard (rather shorter lived between the A series and the gamma coins). On that coin, the workshop is the gamma following TS in exergue. Thessalonica: Of the fifteen mints, Thessalonica offers the greatest variety of Falling Horseman types. This mint, at one time or another, produced all four of the FH types. Distinctive among the early issues are the FH1 coins (top row for Constans and Constantius II) that use a right facing obverse portrait showing the emperor holding a globe. This is similar to the common left facing portraits used on the middle denomination at other mints. My coins at the left of the two bottom rows show the FH2 'sitting' style with different field letters separating them by weight standards or series. My small coins are FH3 'reaching'. Unfortunately, I do not have one of the later FH4 coins for my image. Early period coins of Thessalonica used a mintmark with Greek numeral (A through E) following TS to indicate the city. Stars and dots were used to distinguish a sequence various series. Distinctive to this mint alone is the reduced size series shown in my image by the pile of one obverse and five reverse images. This series marked the five workshops (officinae) with a Greek numeral in the reverse field. Other mints, and this mint at other times, used this position for letters indicating the weight standard of the coins. This gets a bit confusing since these same letters (most commonly gamma) were common field letters for larger series. Notice that these coins use the mintmark SMTS (Sacra Moneta Thessalonica) in exergue without a following workshop letter. Compare these to the even later coin of Julian II (bottom right) which uses SMTSE (E being the shop letter) and M to mark the series in the reverse field. Also note that this mint used quite a variety of horsemen hair styles and caps. It was unusual for a mint of that day to change so many details so frequently. A complete set of Thessalonica horsemen considering every possible variation will be a lot of coins. https://www.forumancientcoins.com/dougsmith/fh.html This 2012 page was one of my later posted to my now abandoned website. The matter was also covered by Dane (of Wildwinds) in her pages before she took over at Wildwinds. http://www.catbikes.ch/helvetica/ft-thessalonica.htm You gave up much too soon. There is one other thing: Don't even think about a coin with the falling horseman type belonging to anyone that died before the type was started in 247. That means there is NO chance the coin can be Constantine II or his father. There is a super, very, extremely rare FH coin of Magnentius. No one here has one. There are FH coins for Constantius Gallus and Julian II as Caesars BUT their portraits have bare heads (NO laurel wreath). Only Constans and Constantius II have head decor on FH coins. Constans died before the FH coins had reduced in size so ANY FH coin of AE3 size with a laurel wreath or diadem on the portrait is either Constantius II or a barbarous copy. Don't make this harder than it is. If it never existed, we don't have it.
Back in 2016 or so I noticed an unattributed FH of Magnentius in a cruddy eBay lot. It was pretty well hidden so I was hoping I was the only one that noticed it. I put in a moderately high bid, more than enough to win a dumpy lot of LBRs, but of course was blown out of the water by someone else who had noticed the coin. Anyway, I still kick myself for not bidding higher.
