Probus Antoninianus

Nice coin @gogili1977 . This is a very popular reverse type for collectors and it comes from a variety of mints with some minor variations between mints too. It is also the type that I see most often mis-attributed to the wrong mint.

Many mints produce the reverse type and many of these mints produced this type without any mintmarks. When attributing an un-marked version of this coin the primary tool available to us is the style though some of the mints give some additional hints.

The most frequent error I see is a Bust Type H variant of the type attributed to Lugdunum (RIC 101). This has been done in Wildwinds and by many dealers in printed and online auctions. This variety exists for Lugdunum but is quite rare and the coins attributed to it generally come from Siscia, Serdica, Cyzicus and sometimes Rome. I think that this is generally laziness (it's the first match that turns up in RIC so why bother looking further!) combined with a lack of detailed knowledge (we can't expect everyone to be a specialist in everything).

Here are two coins of the type from two mints both without any mintmarks. Where do you think that they are from?




I am sorry if I have hijacked the thread....

 

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And now for the rest of the story:
Fakes exist even of common coins. This is a known cast showing 'pearls' and documented in the lists by exact duplicates. Beware. I got my money back because I was dealing with an honest seller.