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<p>[QUOTE=&quot;otlichnik, post: 5408985, member: 109731&quot;]The three standard coins from Nicaea are very common and that is <b><i>very</i></b> interesting and <b><i>very</i></b> weird.</p><p><br /></p><p>They are common in central Balkan lots (among dealers and collectors) and in Balkan excavations, in hoards and site finds (among archaeologists).</p><p><br /></p><p>That is quite odd for a provincial city coinage.&nbsp; Most such coins circulated in or close to the city they were struck in.&nbsp; To find large numbers far away - for example, Viminacium (Kostolac, Serbia) is roughly 800 km as the crow flies and over 1000 km by road/path from Nicaea/Iznik - is extremely unusual.</p><p><br /></p><p>Clearly something odd and special was going on.&nbsp; It appears that the central Balkans experienced a shortage of bronze coinage in the third century and that this was addressed in several &quot;innovative&quot; ways, one of which involved the Nicaea coins.</p><p><br /></p><p>In the first couple of decades of the third century cast forgeries were common - limes denarii (copper-alloy casts of contemporary or near-contemporary silver denarii) and larger limes falsa consisting of lighter weight casts of asses, dupondii and sestertii.</p><p><br /></p><p>The in the next decades of the third century we see large numbers of Nicaea coins imported from that far away city.&nbsp; So many that one has to wonder whether Nicaea was engaged in some sort of for-profit minting and export of its local coinage.&nbsp; I don&#039;t think any other city repeats this pattern.</p><p><br /></p><p>Then the Nicaea types were replaced by the PMS COL VIM and COLONIA DACIA bronzes.&nbsp; Finally, the massive numbers of small base metal antoninaii of the 260s-270s meets local needs - though even these include imitations.[/QUOTE]</p><p><br /></p>

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