A Game For My Son

I love this game you're playing!

 

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Me too! He is really good with images and finding the little details that make things stand out from each other. He is also super-interested in history and is amazed that there is history before World War II (which is were most of his coins prior to this date to).

 

Very impressive!!

 

I wish I had started learning about ancient coins when I was 7. Maybe the difference between 7 and 14 would have made me smarter now??? What I really wish is I had had something fun to learn with another generation more often than I did.

 

Oh man, that's cool! I bet you guys will have a blast.

Here what it looks like at my house when I pull out the coins.

"Hey, who want to check out dad's cool new coin?!"




"Where's everyone going?! Come on! It will be fun!"

 

What a terrific way to introduce your kid to ancient coins !
Well done

Q

 

In between the insanity of work and home, my son and I were able to sit down and work on another coin this afternoon.

He knew exactly where to go and what to look for. It was awesome! I let him control the computer and navigate the site until he found what he was looking for. It only took him 15ish minutes to find the coin on tesorillo. We then went to wildwinds for further identification and that's where we had some issues.

This being a city commemorative that was minted under several rulers, it was hard, nay impossible, to find. We looked high and low and he was about to give up. Then we googled it and boom - realized that wildwinds has it's own city commemoratives page. After that it was smooth sailing and he was able to find the coin in question.

I present to you all, my son's latest identification

Constantinopolis Commemorative AE follis
330-333 AD
CONSTANTINOPOLIS, helmeted bust left
No legend, Victory standing front, looking left, foot on prow, holding sceptre and resting left hand shield
Mintmark BSIS


He has two more to ID before his game is over. He has had a blast so far and has learned so much.

 

Hello All!

It has been a pretty hectic 2 weeks with getting ready for school and trying to cram as much summer as possible in the remaining days.
Unfortunately we were just not able to sit down and devote some good quality time to identifying the remaining two coins my son has for his game.
Finally, we had some time on the last day of summer to get into these last two. Luckily he has sharpened his teeth on previous coins in his game and has sat with me while I looked through pictures so he was able to get these figured out really quickly. I would say that his speed at ID'ing has gone from around an hour or so with my help to maybe 10-15 minutes (with an exception of coin 2) and needing very little help from me.

Here is coin 1:
Licinius I AE Follis. IMP C VAL LICIN LICINIVS P F AVG, radiate, draped and cuirassed bust right
IOVI CONSERVATORI, Jupiter standing left, chlamys across left shoulder, holding Victory on globe and leaning on sceptre, eagle at left with wreath in its beak, captive right, X over II Mu in right field
Mintmark: SMALA

 

Here is coin 2:
He was able to ID everything off of Tesorillo but when he went to wildwinds we couldn't find it to save our lives. We googled it and could only find one example from vcoins that closely matches. Not sure why this is the case. Either way, he is confident (as am I) of his identification. Tells us what you all think!

Theodosius I
DN THEODOSIVS PF AVG, pearl diademed, draped and cuirassed bust right
CONCORDIA AVGGG, Constantinopolis, helmeted, seated facing, head right, on throne, holding partly seen spear and globe
Mintmark: TES

 

This wraps up my son's game. It was originally planned to be approximately a week long evolution but life got in the way. At least this way, he has been able to spread out the fun and extend his learning opportunity.

He and I have had a wonderful time doing research, reading histories, and identifying coins. We have both learned so much from this experience and I want to give a special heart-felt "thank you" to the anonymous person who sent him these coins. You have really lit a fire in him for ancients as well as for history outside of WWII, which up until this time he thought was the oldest thing ever! haha.

Thanks everyone for looking and reading as we made our discoveries.

 

This was a wonderful thread, Froggy! How thrilling it must have been for both you and your son

 

Indeed it was @TIF ! I have some uncleaned ancients sitting in distilled water now that will hopefully clean up to be identified. Definitely not as nice as what I've posted here...but with the knowledge we both gained I think we will be ok

 

Props to the anonymous donor. Those coins show good detail and are much better than typical uncleaneds. It made the game possible and the coins certainly worth keeping.