So I saw this lonely, dirty little urchin on the bid board and put $0.50 and lo-and-behold, won it. 15 mm - 2.44g soaking/brushing brought this out I don't think I've ever seen a seated rider like this before. Any hints on identifying, is it a provincial?, should I keep soaking?
Honorius GLORIA ROMANORVM Emperor riding on horseback, Antioch mint ANTA http://augustuscoins.com/ed/ricix/type42.html
I agree, it certainly can seem that way at times, particularly with these Ancients people! Solid buy for fiddy cents, I reckon! Fun that there's some detail hiding under the crust, and that it's not just a slug.
What I find scary is how a coin that far gone saved exactly what was needed to ID it. The obverse is terrible but there is a trace of RIVS which has to be Honorius since the other two options have a D (Arcadius) or S (Theodosius) but your coin shows the R. There are many coins of this period in much better shape that lack that letter making ID hard. While the reverse is a lot better than the obverse, it remains a bit short of 'attractive' BUT it has the ANTA mintmark. While I am not saying you got a huge bargain at 50 cents, you got a genuine ancient coin that is fully identifiable and has a reverse type with a horse long after that was a common type. In other words, you got lucky. Mine is Cyzicus. In comparison, I really overpaid at $10 in 1995. However I do not want to trade even though Antioch is more scarce.
OK, some more soaking and brushing, but stopping when I see little spots of shiny bronze...can't do any more "improvement", but oodles o hurt. Can easily see the "ORIUS" that @dougsmit mentioned!
