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<p>[QUOTE=&quot;svessien, post: 7179575, member: 15481&quot;]I usually buy coins on auction, but today I found a coin on a fixed price list that I considered a good buy:</p><p><br /></p><p>[ATTACH=full]1274780[/ATTACH]</p><p>Sellers description:</p><p>Constantine I; 307-337 AD, Trier, 318-9 AD, Billon Argenteus, 3.17g. RIC-209, officina S=2 (r1). Obv: IMP CONSTAN - TINVS MAX AVG Cuirassed bust r., seen from front, wearing laureate helmet. Rx: VICTORIAE LAET PRINC PERP Two Victories holding shield resting on altar decorated with star, the Victory on l. inscribes VOT P R onto the shield; STR in exergue. From the Philip Ashton Collection, purchased from Alex Malloy, October 1998.. Mint State</p><p><br /></p><p>The coin looks great, and I have full confidence in the expertise of the numismatists at HJB, but it’s this thing with late Roman denominations again: The coin is described here as a BI Argentus. Sear has it as a billon centenionalis. OCRE has it as an AE2/AE3. Sear has RIC VII 208a as the only «base silver argentus or centenionalis». OCRE has that as «AE2/AE3» too. I haven’t found the type described in Sutherland.</p><p><br /></p><p>So what do you guys think? Are you aware of any controversy concerning the BI Argentus? The position of Sear seems to be that the only BI Argenteii minted were the 312 AD issues for Constantine, Licinius and Maximinus II produced at Trier. Is it wrong to call this coin (RIC 209) an argentus? Does it really matter? Does the coin deserve a place in a «silver coin» collection along argenteii of other tetrarchs?[/QUOTE]</p><p><br /></p>

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