Recently picked up this Claudius II Gothicus. It was listed as barbarous, and based on the uneven quality of the obverse legend (the spacing and that S) and the reverse legend itself ([XX]DESSXE[x]) , I'm inclined to agree. But the bust is pretty nice. I'm thinking it might have intended to be a FIDES reverse? I really don't know ... What are your thoughts on it? And show me some of your barbarous or unofficial coins!
Though it is on a small flan, I think it is an official FIDES EXERCI. RIC Vi Rome 34 or 35, depending on obverse legend.
Thanks, Victor! That extra spacing in the obverse legend and a little weird to me, and I was seeing the first E as an S which didn't bring up any matches. It all makes sense now.
Maybe it is listed as barbarous because unofficial imitations were very common for this emperor's bronze coinage.In Britain,Spain and Gaul many examples have been found. The theory is that the presence of troops there outstripped the quantity of official coinage, creating shortages. Many of those coins were discovered around military sites. It seems that they were tolerated as coinage there, and probably made not far from military camps by civilian entrepreneurs, to facilitate trade with the soldiers.
Unfortunately, we will never know for sure whether or not it's official. There are so many unofficial coins of Claudius Gothicus, and the quality of both official and unofficial coins varies so widely, that they almost form a continuum from clearly official to obviously fake, with most examples somewhere nebulously in between. Realistically, we can distinguish them only at the extremes. Your coin--style good, some weird spacing, known reverse type but somewhat poorly executed, small flan--is definitely in the "hmmm, head-scratching" area.
