Hey, guys. I stumble in here every so often when one of you guys posts a coin along with a great historical back-story. I can see why you guys love your ancients, but the field is just too intimidating for me at the moment. Plus, I'm pretty lousy at attribution. Which brings me to my point. I've had this ancient bronze kicking around in my foreign box for a couple of years now, and just recently unearthed it. It is about 23mm in diameter, weighs roughly 7.5g, and has a bust on the obverse facing left. The reverse has what I believe is referred to as the 'Macedonia Shield', which looks pretty wicked, in my opinion. I don't know if this makes the coin Macedonian, I was at one point under the assumption that the coin was Roman. I had written on the corner of the flip that it was in: "Claudius? Tiberius? Rare Emperor?" I'm under no illusion that this is a good ancient coin, but would love to hear if someone can pin down the emperor. Thanks in advance, everyone! Cruddy pictures to follow.
Probably something like this Claudius AE23 of the Koinon of Macedonia. Obv:- TIBERIOS KLAU KAISAR GERMANIKOS (or similar), bare head left Rev:- SEBASTOS MAKEDONWN, Macedonian shield but legends in greek. Regards, Martin
As Martin says, it's Koinon, Macedon. It's a Roman Provincial issue. Emperor could be Claudius. Also looks a little like Vespasian. The problem with attributing worn provincial issues is that the portraits frequently diverge greatly from the imperial standard, and it's difficult to nail a coin down without a good chunk of the obverse inscription. I can't make out the letters from that pic.
I've tried to capture some of the obverse script, but this is about as good as I think it is going to get, I'm afraid.
I cannot ID the emperor, but your coin is not a bad coin at all, especially the reverse. Here is one I have from Koinon, only it's a Domitian: DOMITIAN AE23 OBVERSE: AVT KAISAR DOMITAINOS SEB, laureate head right REVERSE: KIONON MAKEDONWN, Macedonian shield Struck at Koinon of Macedonia, 81-96AD 8.2g, 23mm RPC 336, SNG Cop 1337, Moushmov 5881
That's a frustrating sort of legend - I clearly make out the word KAISAR, or Caesar, but I cannot discern any letters before or after it, which is useless. I can only narrow it down to Claudius, Vitellius, or Vespasian by the bust style
Everyone please note that "koinon" is not a specific city, but rather an organization of various cities. http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Koinon
