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<p>[QUOTE=&quot;dougsmit, post: 2153200, member: 19463&quot;]I wish I knew the &#039;system&#039; Rome mint used for some of their mintmarks but I don&#039;t and I have seen nothing suggesting anyone alive in the last 1000 years has.&nbsp; R P is easy since w can guess R would be for Rome and the choices&nbsp; P, S, T etc. point to the first letters or ordinal numbers primus, secundus and tertius.&nbsp; the question is what the B or the E or the star added to the matter in their series and why we dont see, for example, RAP, RCP or others.&nbsp; This is not limited to just the tetrarchy since Rome got creative later in the FEL TEMP period as well.&nbsp; </p><p><br /></p><p>As far as the A=R etc. goes, I suggest we all take the attitude it is our job to learn the language on the coins.&nbsp; I don&#039;t mean Latin but learning the type faces favored in different places at different times.&nbsp; The long dead are unlikely to change the way they did things to match your idea of proper lettering.&nbsp; </p><p><br /></p><p>A few Rome mint coins:</p><p><br /></p><p>&nbsp;</p><p>Maxentius RET</p><p>[ATTACH=full]413457[/ATTACH] </p><p>Maxentius RBT</p><p>[ATTACH=full]413458[/ATTACH]</p><p><br /></p><p>Jumping ahead 35 years or so:</p><p><br /></p><p>Constantius II R.F.E</p><p>[ATTACH=full]413461[/ATTACH] </p><p>R.F.Q</p><p>[ATTACH=full]413462[/ATTACH] </p><p>RMP*</p><p>[ATTACH=full]413463[/ATTACH] </p><p><br /></p><p>This last M might be the same as coins with M higher in the field which have been guessed to mean that the tiny bronzes are 1/1000 of a gold solidus.&nbsp; I&#039;m not saying that this theory is right or wrong but just that there is a lot we don&#039;t know about Roman coins when it comes to questions starting with &#039;Why?&#039;.&nbsp; Why did Rome stick a letter in the middle?&nbsp; What does it mean?&nbsp; Let me know when you figure it out.&nbsp; I challenge someone now in their teens to do better in 50 years than my generation has done.</p><p><br /></p><p>It is not all bad.&nbsp; Scholars have figured out the three below from Probus&#039; Roman series.&nbsp; We have discussed them here before so I&#039;ll just give the link.&nbsp; I really should seek out the rest of the set.&nbsp; Anyone have them?</p><p><img src="http://www.forumancientcoins.com/dougsmith/probus3.jpg" class="bbCodeImage wysiwygImage" alt="" unselectable="on" /> </p><p><a href="http://www.forumancientcoins.com/dougsmith/equiti.html" target="_blank" class="externalLink ProxyLink" data-proxy-href="http://www.forumancientcoins.com/dougsmith/equiti.html" rel="nofollow">http://www.forumancientcoins.com/dougsmith/equiti.html</a>[/QUOTE]</p><p><br /></p>

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