Had a bit of help figuring this one out, but I'm not outing my helper unless we are right. I don't want to out him if we're wrong. To be fair, we were between two different mints. My son and I made that guess based on having the coin in hand. Here is the best guess: The coin below is Aurelian. The legend says IMP CAVRELIANVS AVG. The reverse is trickier - The bad news is it doesn't show well in the pic, but at 3 o'clock it says BIS. So, I did a search for Aurelian's with BIS there and found an example with two figures on the rear with very close positioning as the figures on mine, it reads RESTITVT ORBIS with the same gap between the R And B as this coin. Further investigation and comparison of other similar coins and mint marks makes this one appear to be Antioch. The reverse pic isn't very good. So, the Antioch identification is shaky. Any and all comments, or related (or not related) posts are welcome.
That will be tricky, because the RESTITVT ORBIS reverse type of Aurelian was issued by at least eight mints employing different mint marks, both in pre- and post-reform periods.
To try and figure out which mint it came from we looked at the markings on the coin and compared them to pictures from different mints. Originally, we only had Antioch and Mediolanum. After a quick search we found several other options (the we in this case is yours truly and my 13 year old son) and compared things like the hair at the back of his neck, the shape of the shoulders/armor, how the type set on the reverse is spaced out, and so on. The boy has shockingly good vision, which is a huge help. And we fully understand that we might never know for sure.
You all are making good progress. You have the major points now and sometimes it is impossible to pinpoint the mint given the state of preservation.
I always got a kick out of them using the same OR to end one word and start the next. The earliest I have is Valerian. The joke was getting old by the time of Aurelian. Probs did it, too.
