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<p>[QUOTE=&quot;dougsmit, post: 814210, member: 19463&quot;]I don&#039;t want to spoil the fun of others making you do the ID work yourself and they gave you the right sites to do it so I&#039;ll just throw in a couple hints that might help.&nbsp; Weigh the coins.&nbsp; The one with the two victories is lighter and replaced the one with two soldiers and one standard because inflation was making the metal value of the coin greater than the denomination.&nbsp; This period was a series of calling in old coins and replacing them with lower quality ones.&nbsp; </p><p><br /></p><p>Be careful that you find a match with only one standard between the soldiers.&nbsp; The same design with two standards was slightly earlier and heavier.&nbsp; The mintmark on the first coin reads SMANA.&nbsp; The SM just means sacred money and can be ignored except to mention that not all mints used it.&nbsp; AN means Antioch where the coin was struck.&nbsp; The final A is a Greek numeral for the workshop within the mint.&nbsp; Antioch at times used up to 15 workshops so it is very possible you will find a matching coin with SMANB etc.&nbsp; Very few people care a lot about workshop numbers or try to fill up a set but there are a few people that pay a little extra for rare or uncatalogued numbers.&nbsp; This is not one of them but it is a nice coin.&nbsp; </p><p><br /></p><p>The other coin belongs to Constantius II who is one letter different from his older brother ConstantiNus II BUT you won&#039;t find this type in Constantinus II&#039;s name because he died before they started making these.&nbsp; The mintmark is ESIS being exactly backwards from your other coin in that the E is the workshop number (5) and SIS stands for the town of Siscia.&nbsp; Some people get led down a path of confusion by the big dot in the center of this reverse but it means nothing.&nbsp; Certainly there are dots on some coins that separate issues in a meaningful way but this one is a remnant of the compass used to lay out the border and legends.&nbsp; Most dies had such a dot but most got erased by the portrait or the reverse design.&nbsp; Relatively few coins had the middle as blank as this one so we often get the dot unless wear and tear have erased it.&nbsp; The reverse legend shows the standard way of abbreviating plurals by doubling the final (or only) letter&nbsp; We see DD avGG Q NN.&nbsp; AVG is one Emperor so AVGG is two (Constantius II and Constans).&nbsp; DD NN is plural of DN (Dominus Noster = our lord). The Q abbreviates Que a suffix meaning &#039;and&#039;.&nbsp; The word order has caused different people more into grammar than I to fight over different translations so I&#039;m staying out of that one.&nbsp; </p><p><br /></p><p>The only worthwhile reason to buy a coin is &#039;because you like them&#039;.&nbsp; These are likable.&nbsp; The first is a better strike and easier to read so I like it better.&nbsp; I never recommend beginners buy poor condition coins because they are harder to read and ones this nice are not hard to find with a little effort.&nbsp; They may cost a little more but you could have spent the same money on a dozen illegible crusties and had less in my opinion.&nbsp; Certainly there are other opinions but I buy ugly coins when I can&#039;t find or afford the same thing in decent looking shape.&nbsp; I hope you will take the trouble to research these two completely and enjoy them so much you decide to add a couple thousand more all selected carefully because you like them.&nbsp; I might suggest a Constans and Constantine II with different reverses and from different mint cities as a good place to start but there are a million options.&nbsp; Enjoy.[/QUOTE]</p><p><br /></p>

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