Well a friend found this coin under the seat of a rental car he was detailing.....gave it to me to see if i could find out anything about it.... Im trying mess around with photoshop to get better images of the symbols/lettering......these are just straight scans though
Couple more shots......this time from digi-cam..... and oops....top pic in above post is up-side down.....
My gut reaction is that it may be an ancient, but if you succeed in bringing out the legends, please repost. For identification purposes only, it really doesn't matter how accurate the colors are, but you might mention what metal it appears to be.
Looks like an ancient Roman coin. Those are fairly common and I think I have some just like that. I'll go through what I have and let you know who the emperor probably is. How big is it?
No scale with me......but it measures .700 inch (17.8MM) across and .065 inch(1.65MM) thick....... As for trying to read the legend on either side.....im having a hard time even with a loupe...... but on the reverse there is a definate raised 'dot' , a spot where a letter may or may not be, and then what appears to be or resemble "NNA" or "KKA" .... only the 'A' one end is more a triange with a dot in the middle........
Okay, my coins are about the same size. Those letters on the reverse are where the coin was minted. As you can see in the second pic on the left sided coin, mine says "CONST" so it was minted in Constantinople. Yours is probably a coin of one of the Constantines which puts it in the 300s A.D. however though, a few emporers used this style and the reverse looks a tiny tiny bit different so if you could make out the letters on the left obverse I could look it up and tell you for sure.
Think i may have solved this one myself Thanks all for pointing me in the right direction though Image and info taken without permission from http://dougsmith.ancients.info/uncleaned.html --- Better cleaner pic from above site matches perfectly the coin i have: And some history: "Constantine I (the Great) dedicated a new capital for the Empire at Constantinople in 330 AD. In honor of this move, a new coin was issued showing no portrait of an emperor but the helmeted bust of a personification of the new city. Around the bust is the legend CONSTANTINOPOLIS (some mints used CONSTANTINOPOLI). The reverse shows Victory (winged female) standing on the prow of a ship. Constantinople was situated on a point of land commanding excellent defenses from the sea. Rome (the city in Italy) may have fallen in 476 AD (or another date of your preference) but Constantinople hung on as Romaion (The Byzantine Empire) for another millennium. The foresight of Constantine in selecting the location might be partially credited for this longevity." So its "SMNA" on the reverse..........
