I always loved this rather chunky coin I've recently acquired from my late father's collection: Diameter: 25mm Thickness: 3mm Weight: about 15g Obverse: (AV)RELIVS CA ESAR AVG ?PIIFO? Reverse: TRPOT VIII SC I'm hoping someone can please tell me what denomination this coin is. Does the Office of Tribune for the 8th time make it dateable? Which figure is depicted on the reverse? I'm not at all sure about the obverse inscription after 'AVG'
Hi Cobbler! Because of the size of the coin, type of metal, and the fact that MA doesn't have a radiate crown, this denomination would be an As. More specifically, your obverse legend is AVRELIVS CAESAR AVG PII FIL, that last bit standing for Pius Filius meaning "son of Pius" (adopted son). And your reverse legend should be more than what you have listed but has worn off, TR POT VIII COS II, S-C across field, showing Salus standing left, feeding snake in arms and leaning on column, making your coin RIC 1319 struck as Caesar under Antoninus Pius 153-154 AD. http://numismatics.org/ocre/id/ric.3.ant.1319_as?lang=en A similar example (not my coin, and yours seems to have no draping*): https://www.acsearch.info/search.html?id=3982385 Edit: *There are other As that were struck during that time that did not have draping, so maybe they reused the obverse die on yours?
That seems heavy for an as. I just checked OCRE and this type was issued as a dupondius without the radiate crown (if I am interpreting this right). Is this because Aurelius was a Caesar at the time, therefore didn't get to wear any crown/laurel wreath at all? Here is the search I used: http://numismatics.org/ocre/results...t_facet:"Marcus+Aurelius"+AND+fulltext:CAESAR
100% correct. Caesars of the period don't wear crowns. The photo seems to have a blue cast. Is the coin a bit more yellow brass? Patinas can make it next to impossible to assign some coins to a denomination when the person is a Caesar or Augusta.
RIC lists this as RIC3 1319, p.184. Nothing, though, about a bare head right. The British Museum does not have this particular bust variety, but does have the draped bust variety in their collection, BMCRE4 1961, p.328. Note the header at the top of p. 328 reads "Dupondius or As," because apparently these coins may appear either in copper or orichalcum. The BMC notes about their specimen in a footnote, "Dupondius (?)." Here is their specimen.
My grateful thanks to everyone who has contributed thus far - I love this site even if my wife thinks it's 'a bit geeky'. I can do geeky so I have no problem with that! So ... As (do you pronounce it 'As' or 'Ass'?) or Dupondius? My weight estimate was based on a pair of kitchen scales so I got our local post office to weigh it more accurately for me and it came out at 16g so my estimate was pretty close. I'm not sure if that helps but as we have to go out today I'll work through the responses in detail when I get back this evening.
Back on line after a busy couple of days, and there was me thinking that this coin would be an easy one to flesh out! I've learned several things from this. I hadn't realised that someone, in this case Marcus Aurelius, could be Caesar before becoming emperor and could issue coins with his portrait under the authority of the sitting emperor, in this case Antoninus Pius, who was it seems his father-in-law and who had adopted him (which I presume means nominated MA to succeed him, which he did in 161 CE). Was this normal practice for the issue of coins, as I see several instances of 'adopted by' in the listings of emperors? And what's the distinction between 'Caesar' and 'Augusta' in Doug Smith's post? A few observations on my part. In full daylight I can't see any evidence of a blue cast and the coin is definitely more of a bronze colour, not yellow enough for it to be brass. I don't know enough about orichalcum to comment on its colour. Re the British Museum coin - weight 12.82g; mine is 16g (as weighed on scales at the Post Office). The obverse legend on mine has Caesar split between CA and ESAR whereas on the BM one it is split between CAE and SAR. So I think this is where we have ended up but please correct me if I'm wrong: As or Dupondius of Marcus Aurelius, struck as Caesar under Antoninus Pius Obverse: Undraped bust of Marcus Aurelius right AVRELIVS CAESAR AVG PII FIL Reverse: Salus standing left, feeding snake in arms and leaning on column TR POT VIII (COS II worn off), S-C across field Date: 153-154 AD. Mint: Rome RIC3 1319 I've hesitated over metal so I'm going to say ?bronze Over to you experts!
Impressive research, Cobbler. I'll let the experts weigh in, but I will say you seem to be on the right track. But one more thing about your research - wasn't it a lot of fun? I just love digging around trying to figure these things out. Hope you had fun too.
Thanks for your kind comments, even if most of the research was done by others. I've had lots of fun, with more to come. Watch out for the other three Roman coins I need to put on here at some point!
I'd add in there that he is bare headed as well... That usually matters and is a point of interest. You've got the formatting here pretty much down, @Cobbler, nice work! For legends that are off flan, worn away, or just illegible, you place that part of the legend in parentheses, like you have, so you can feel confident with simply removing the "worn off" part. Agreed! Great job!
