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<p>[QUOTE=&quot;hotwheelsearl, post: 4938733, member: 75143&quot;]We all know that the so-called &quot;barbaric imitations&quot; are generally of &quot;low&quot; artistic quality.</p><p>The celators who made these tended not to be officially trained artisans, and were often illiterate. </p><p>Therefore, you often find blundered legends, atrocious busts, and only a semblance of an official appearance.</p><p><br /></p><p>In addition, they often have the following features:</p><p>1. feature a radiate bust</p><p>2. features Constantine&#039;s VLPP type</p><p>3. Very small</p><p>4. Very &quot;ugly&quot; and blundered.</p><p><br /></p><p>Here are two examples of low artistic quality imitations:</p><p>[ATTACH=full]1186921[/ATTACH] </p><p>Ruler: Tetricus II(?)</p><p>Diam: 14mm</p><p>Weight: 1.9g</p><p>This one features: small size (an average radiate of the Tetricii was often 16-20mm), and a rather ugly obverse. Curiously, the reverse is pretty average of the Tetricii.</p><p><br /></p><p>Compare to an official Tetricus II:</p><p>[ATTACH=full]1186926[/ATTACH] </p><p><br /></p><p><br /></p><p><br /></p><p>[ATTACH=full]1186924[/ATTACH] </p><p>Ruler: Constantine I</p><p>Diam: 15mm</p><p>Weight: 1.6g</p><p>This features: blundered legends, and poor quality engraving on both sides. Constantine had a flat shovel-face, and the two victories on the rev see to be sharing a pint.</p><p><br /></p><p>Compare to an official Constantine VLPP with rather attractive and detailed engravings. </p><p>[ATTACH=full]1186928[/ATTACH] </p><p>---</p><p>[ATTACH=full]1186929[/ATTACH] </p><p>Ruler: Constantius II(?)</p><p>Diam: 12mm</p><p>Weight: 0.8g</p><p>This features: extremely small size and weight, no legends, and very primitive line-drawing style of the fallen horseman.</p><p><br /></p><p>Compare to an official FTR of Constantius II:</p><p>[ATTACH=full]1186931[/ATTACH] </p><p><br /></p><p><br /></p><p><br /></p><p>Sometimes, however, you have <i>excellent</i> imitations that fall into two categories:</p><p>1. Extremely accurate recreations of official types. Some consider these coins to be actually counterfeits or forgeries, since the style emulation is so close.</p><p>2. Extremely <i>stylistic and abstract</i> designs. These are similar to the &quot;ugly&quot; types in that they blunder the legends and designs, but have such an endearing style that they have their own value in their abstractiveness. The &quot;ugly&quot; type probably used an inexperienced or untrained celator; the &quot;abstract&quot; ones likely used a local artisan trained in local Briton/Celtic art, and adapted his style into an emulation of the Roman.</p><p><br /></p><p>Example of Category 1:</p><p>[ATTACH=full]1186932[/ATTACH] </p><p>Ruler: Constans</p><p>Diam: 24mm</p><p>Weight: 4.4g</p><p>This style is so fine that I initially assumed this was an official Arles issue. However, the rather alien-like appearance of Constans, and the unusually large emperor figure on the reverse, plus strange-looking lettering points this towards a very fine, but barbaric imitation. I think we could call this a &quot;counterfeit&quot; since it looks so good.</p><p><br /></p><p>Compare to an official Constans galley:</p><p>[ATTACH=full]1186933[/ATTACH] </p><p>Ruler: Constans</p><p>Diam: 21mm</p><p>Weight: 6.1g</p><p>Curiously, the imitation/forgery is actually <i>larger</i> in flan size, by a while 3mm. These two coins should have shared the same module size, but the official one is rather smaller. However, it is significantly (20%) heavier, so I guess it evens out.</p><p><br /></p><p>An example of Category 2:</p><p>[ATTACH=full]1186939[/ATTACH] </p><p>Ruler: Constantine I</p><p>Diam: 19x18mm</p><p>Weight: 2.9g</p><p>This features a gorgeous, abstract and stylized design. The legends are completely blundered, but are present. This is a coin where the celator was obviously a highly talented artist in his own right. He basically took inspiration from the official model, and adapted and inserted his own Celtic(?) flavor into the coin! The end result is an absolutely stunning, endearing and high-quality coin. The celator must have been proud of his creation, contrasted to the rather awful examples shown up top.</p><p><br /></p><p>Compare to an official Constantine I VLPP:</p><p>[ATTACH=full]1186928[/ATTACH] </p><p>Ruler: Constantine I</p><p>Diam: 17mm</p><p>Weight: 2.2g</p><p>Again, curiously, the imitation outsizes and outweights the official issue! However, the imitation has no silver while the official is likely a low-silver content billon alloy.</p><p><br /></p><p><br /></p><p>Thanks for reading this long post. <b>Please post your favorite imitations!</b>[/QUOTE]</p><p><br /></p>

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