I think the first one is from Philip I but the reverse does not exactly match any of the photos I have found, her arms are pointing further down on this coin than on the ones I found on wildwinds website. On the second I could not make out enough of the obverse lettering to get a hit.
These the last 2 coins. The second one I believe is Byzantine, and the first I have no idea other than Greek or Roman. I really appreciate all the help I have been getting in identifying these coins.
1st Gordian III AE Provincial from Viminacium 2nd Nerva denarius Aequitas That should get you to the right section of Wildwinds.
3rd Velia Lucania Greek Italy http://www.acsearch.info/record.html?id=4850 Condition is everything on these but yours is still a collectable coin. There are many varieties of these.
I mentioned the various Velia silver variations. They tend to have the lion reverse but sometimes he is just standing there and sometimes he eats a piece of meat on the ground. My favorite is the hunting 'action' scene.
stainless sorry doug beat you to the punch dougsmit Thanks for the rapid responses now for the real question. I was going to post it here but think it will require some thinking so I will start a new thread tommorrow. I think I just added a new arena to my coin collecting.
One thing you need to keep in mind is that each die was hand carved. Because of this, in general, catelogs differentiate coins only by what appear to be intentional differences by the die carver. Slight differences in pose are usually not considered a different type, as they're more often than not the result of the nature of production than they are intentional differences. This means that two coins of the same type can look very different, particularly if their dies were carved by different people at different skill levels. Off the top of my head, these are some of the major things you generally need to worry about when trying to figure out if a Roman coin is the same type as another (aside from obvious things like denomination and which emperor is on it): Whether the bust and figure on the reverse face left or right. Whether the legend matches (unless its just a misspelled version of the same legend, since spelling errors don't usually count as a difference). What the figure on the obverse is wearing (radiate crown, lauriate, diadem, cuirassed [wearing body armor], etc.) Major differences in position of the reverse figure(s) (i.e. sitting vs. standing vs. walking) The type and number of attributes (basically physical objects that are associated with the figure, like if anyone is holding a spear, globe, military standard, etc.) What matters exactly can very from source to source, and sometimes even within the same book series (for instance, if I remember correctly, one volume of the RIC doesn't differentiate between large and small busts for Claudius Gothicus, but another does so for the coins of Diocletian and the Tetrarchy), and people often argue about whether some small differences were meaningful or not. Some might find this immense amount of variety and lack of clearly defined boundaries daunting, particularly if you're the sort who feels the need to have every single variation of something, but I find it rather interesting, and it's one of the reasons I like ancients.
While I agree with Gao's post, I'd like to add one little point. There is no consistency to what differences get catalogued separately and which are ignored. In many cases the minor differences point out things that separate one issue from another but sometimes they seem random. If a dot was added to the design at the same time that the weight standards of the coins were changed, you can pretty well expect that the change will be cataloged. In another case there are portrait busts with armor or civilian clothes that get separated according to a minor scrap of fabric and other issues that stop with an unclear separation between head and bust. I suggest that new collectors don't let catalogs get in the way of enjoying your coins. Especially if you don't own the book in question, don't get hung up on whether the bust is seen from the front or back or whether the headgear is pearl or rosette. Some of the most varied issues have the least distinctive cataloging partly because a complete listing of all the minor variations (e.g. Probus busts) would make a catalog several times as thick as the current volume. There will be plenty of time to add these matters to your studies if and when you specialize in the coins. I suggest paying attention to differences that tell something like the mint ID or date range but even these might not be something of immediate interest in the first phase of your hobby.
