I just bought a large lot of heavily-worn denarii, primarily 2nd century, many of which have partially or completely obliterated inscriptions. Are there any websites or online resources where I could identify emperors by portrait or reverse design? I guess there aren't too many possible options, so I could look up 2nd century emperors individually, but I was just wondering if anyone knows of any quick references.
I guess I've been doing this too long, but if they are 2d Century or earlier, the portraits are fairly easy to ID. It's when we get into the generic portraits of the 3d and 4th Centuries, it's hard to ID by portrait.
More than a few of us are as likely to be able to call by name a hundred Romans dead for years as we are to name the next hundred people we meet in places we frequent daily. It gets hard with late Romans when some of the portraits merged into a generic 'emperor' to some degree but anyone who has been doing this a while will get 9 out of 10 denarii with some ease. Also post reverse images since it is often the case that a coin can be IDed from that alone as easily as from the portrait.
Would Google image search do the trick? Drag a picture into the Google image search box and see what results you get.
With a ton of skepticism, I dropped my latest Constantius II coin in Google and was given Licinius and Probus results. I fear we are a bit away from this being a useful resource. I recall a few decades ago when it seemed funny that a computer might try to beat a human chess master. Computers play better now. Perhaps someday the database of coins will allow this sort of search but, for now, I suspect they are lucky to recognize they are looking for a coin. I then tried dragging a Columbian half photo and it found that exact image online where the coin was for sale and suggested as similar several round silver coins none of which had heads. Ancients will be a lot harder in this respect than moderns. Impossible? In my lifetime I could see them writing a routine that would separate all the US type coins but not even a small percentage of ancients.
I just tried an Aelius denarius in google images (obverse only) and got an array of 20 coin images, 7 of which were ancient coins and none of which were remotely close in the sense of an ID a collector might use to start a search from. I entered a very clear Diocletian follis image and added the word "coin". I got an array of ten images of coins, three of which were ancient and all unlike the entered coin. For all I know, the google image finder may be able to find the source of a given image and that could be useful. But, at the current capability, if you don't already know what the coin is, it seems to match coin images to other round images and that it about all.
That's true, the Google image finder can find similarities to well known things. I took a photo of Picasso's Guernica with an iPhone, file name was 'photo.jpg' and dragged it into the Google Image finder, and got exact and plentiful results of Guernica images and other links to the famous painting and painter. If you drop a vacation photo of the Coliseum in Rome into the Google Image finder, it's bound to crank out a litany of images of that structure.
I gave it a try. Most result return coins, some were ancients, one was very close. This got me this lol
Well, I didn't mean to have you guys do my homework for me, but if anyone wants to take a stab at the coins below it would be greatly appreciated. #1 #2 #3 #4 #5 - Commodus? #6 #7 #8
Marcus Aurelius 1, 4 Commodus 2, 5, 6 Antoninus Pius 3, 8 Septimius Severus 7 (193 first year Liberalitas type) 100% certain on 2-8; #1 could be Commodus but you can compare the visible legend to confirm it.
