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<p>[QUOTE=&quot;dougsmit, post: 1965932, member: 19463&quot;]I&#039;m sorry I was slow to see this one since it is a pet subject of mine.&nbsp; I would be honored if anyone would check my pages on the subject:</p><p><a href="http://www.forumancientcoins.com/dougsmith/feac73xxi.html" target="_blank" class="externalLink ProxyLink" data-proxy-href="http://www.forumancientcoins.com/dougsmith/feac73xxi.html" rel="nofollow">http://www.forumancientcoins.com/dougsmith/feac73xxi.html</a></p><p><br /></p><p>These large, post reform folles were made from the same metal stock as the pre reform antoniniani.&nbsp; After years of having the ratio of 20 parts copper to one part silver on antoniniani only a few of the big folles bore the ratio mark.&nbsp; Part of that is because it was not long before debasement made the amount of silver less than this so we wouldn&#039;t want to advertise it.&nbsp; </p><p><br /></p><p>I have two related coins to show:</p><p>First is the equivalent Diocletian.&nbsp; Mine is RIC 30a page 665 volume VI.&nbsp; Yours is RIC 30b.&nbsp; Why RIC used the a-b letters to separate these rather than whole numbers is wholly beyond me.&nbsp; These things were silvered when issued and a few still have some silver.&nbsp; </p><p>[ATTACH=full]347949[/ATTACH] </p><p>My second coin is the Galerius Caesar of the following series.&nbsp; It is RIC 33b.&nbsp; The difference between the two series (30a through 31b and 32a through 33b) is the second group dated 301 has the I from XXI under the officina letter while the first group has the entire XXI on the left side.&nbsp;&nbsp; Therefore your coin is from the first group and RIC 30b.&nbsp; </p><p>[ATTACH=full]347950[/ATTACH] </p><p><br /></p><p>There have been a lot of people put a lot of effort into denying the meaning of the alloy mark.&nbsp; I used to try to be easy to get along with and allow them their view but no more.&nbsp; There is just too much evidence that XXI (and KA - the Greek equivalent) means the coin is a 20 to 1 alloy.&nbsp; Let me point out that we would say that this is 1/21st silver since we count the whole weight as the denominator.&nbsp; The Romans gave the recipe (take one part silver and 20 parts copper and mix well).&nbsp; Valentinian has shown his coins of Tacitus here where the alloy was double rich and the mark XI.&nbsp; </p><p><br /></p><p>Another Galerius retaining no silver is RIC 31b and part of the series with my Diocletian (XXI all on left).&nbsp; </p><p>[ATTACH=full]347960[/ATTACH] </p><p><br /></p><p>Finally here is a Constantius I Caesar coin that could be called RIC 33a since it has the I on right but it is an ancient cast fake as can be seen from the porous surfaces and edge marks where it was cast on a stack of coins.&nbsp; I do not own but have seen several clay molds offered for sale used to make coins like this.&nbsp; The disks were stacked into a column, metal poured in and broken apart.&nbsp; My coin shows no effort to hide the edge scar.&nbsp; I don&#039;t know who made it but I suspect there was a major counterfeiting ring operating at the time judging from the survivors in both cast coin and clay mold form. </p><p>[ATTACH=full]347959[/ATTACH][/QUOTE]</p><p><br /></p>

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