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<p>[QUOTE=&quot;GinoLR, post: 8076807, member: 128351&quot;]When I was a kid, my father (who never was a coin-collector) had in a drawer not a loaded gun but an old brown envelope with small ancient coins inside. Seeing I was very interested he gave them to me. Somebody had given him these coins when he was himself a child.</p><p><br /></p><p>It is a group of 20 coins. I was fascinated by the details on the best preserved ones. I deciphered the names and was at first a bit puzzled because I had never heard about these emperors : Gallienus, Postumus, Tetricus... For me Roman emperors were Caesar, Nero, Trajan, Marcus Aurelius... The Claudius on the coins did not at all look like the emperor Claudius depicted on a book. </p><p><br /></p><p>Well... with some more books I learned one or two things about these rather obscure emperors, that Gaul had been independent for some time in the 3rd c., that it was a period of crisis and barbarian invasions. Dark ages we never study at school.</p><p><br /></p><p>My dad did not know from where these coins came. Perhaps a handful taken from a bigger hoard, or the content of a purse. They obviously come from a well-protected hoard, for they have not been cleaned and have been found in such a good condition, with their smooth patina. The lot is homogenous : all coins are official bronze antoniniani except for one Tetricus I which is an imitation, all were minted between the mid-260s, when all trace of silver had disappeared from antoniniani under Gallienus and Postumus, and the early 270s under Tetricus, probably 271 or 272, before Aurelian coins had arrived where this money circulated. It is interesting to note that there are nearly as many coins of the legitimate emperors (Gallienus, Salonina, Claudius II) as of the Gallic usurpers (Postumus, Victorinus, Tetricus I and II), with only one imitation. </p><p><br /></p><p>Too bad I will never know where these coins were found... </p><p><br /></p><p>[ATTACH=full]1401895[/ATTACH]</p><p><br /></p><p>I wonder if other CT members have groups of coins that were found together...[/QUOTE]</p><p><br /></p>

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