Unknown Roman Set (5 coins bought together)

Not really, you just need to have a lot of practice. I learned how to read coin Latin from buying over 1,000 junk coins. The mental and eye strain was incredible, the waste of time and money awful, but the learning experience was great.
Never again, though.

 

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I don't think it's Drusus. I think I see a CLAVDIVS on the obverse.

 

The issue I have with your suggestion is that if the question posed in a thread is answered quickly enough -- as often happens -- there could still easily be a situation in which the same person posts 5 or 6 or more new threads in a day, thereby pushing other people's threads (which they may have spent hours writing) off the front page into the oblivion of page 2.

I thought I was being quite generous by suggesting an informal limit of 2 or 3 new threads per 24-hour period. I rarely post more than one new thread in a day myself. In fact, I just checked and it seems that I've posted 23 new threads in the last six months, so a little less than one per week. The considerable majority of my activity here consists of commenting on other people's threads.

 

All are great 'budget' coins. Albeit, perhaps a little harshly cleaned at one point in time.

The emperor portraits/reverse legends & devices are all defined enough to identify/attribute.

@$22 per coin(avg.) -- Not necessarily a poor buy for a lot that includes Commodus, S. Severus, Domitian, Pius, Claudius and Faustina Jr.

You're getting coins from the 1st four Imperial Roman dynasties; spanning roughly the first 250 years of the Roman Empire:

Julio-Claudian -- (Claudius)
Flavian -- (Domitian)
Nerva/Antonine AKA including the 'Five Good/Adoptive Emperors' -- (Pius), (Faustina Jr. - wife of M. Aurelius), (Commodus)
Severan -- (S. Severus)

So, a decent 'starter set'. As for denomination, they look to all be Æ(Bronze/Base Metal) Asses. 'As' is the singular.

EDIT: Upon closer look, the Claudius looks to be an Orichalcum(brass) Sestertius. Had the original patina not been stripped, this may have fetched a C-note (or few) @auction. I believe that the Faustina Jr. is also a Sestertius.

These have been overcleaned IMHO. (having been stripped to bare metal in most places). I would leave them alone, there is not much opportunity to improve their appearance.

 

What a pleasant reply, thank you! I like that way of looking at it. The 1st four Imperial Roman dynasties. I plan to dig into these personalities and learn more about them.

Is the one that is much more gold in color some kind of brass or something? It is the only one of my purchases that is this color and I'm sure it isn't gold.

It's so tempting to try to remove more of the patina, but I will resist. Thank you again

 

A really good start. If you love History, you're likely a successful future collector of ancient coins. That's my own case. Good luck JJ, and we'll read you soon.

 

Thank you so much! I very much love history and like the vibe of this forum too.

 

I edited my above post around the time that you responded. I do believe that the Claudius and Faustina are indeed Sestertii (based on size/weight). Ancient coins, other than Silver(AR) and Gold(AV), are referred to as Base Metal(Æ). Æ represents a Copper-based alloy mixed with other metals such as tin, and traces of other natural impurities such as iron and nickel.

The Romans also had their own flavor of Copper-based alloy that included Zinc. It was referred to as Orichalcum. We commonly label it in current times as 'Brass'.

The earlier Imperial Sestertii(4 Æ Asses after Augustus' monetary reform) and Dupondii(2 Æ Asses) were produced using Orichalcum.

I absolutely encourage one to "dig into the personalities". One of the neatest things about ancient coins (for me) is the ability to have a tangible connection to past history that may inspire one to learn more about it.

 

@JJ Walker - welcome. Your second set of pictures is much better. You can do some of the attribution work with a few books (you can find a dozen or more good Greek & Roman books on V-Coins for less than $20), or some database searching online. I like acsearch.
I bought an inexpensive bronze coin at the Pasadena (TX) Coin Club meeting last month. It was the first ancient coin from a club meeting in a long time. The coin was not attributed and was not one I recognized. The coin is not in my collecting area so I do not have a book that would have the coin. I could read a couple of letters on the coin (GOR) and saw what looked like a Bull & lion on the reverse. I searched for "gordian bull lion" and picked out a coin similar to mine -

mine

https://www.acsearch.info/search.html?id=1372441

I agree with this thinking. I would rather see a few well written posts than a gillion 'what is this' posts with poor pics.

 

Wow this is so cool. I just spent the last half hour learning about Orichalcum. Thank you!

 

Great advice. I'll try this search method. It is so hard to get my eyes to read these letters but I know I can do it.

 

So I'm digging into your all clues here using the great search tips given. I'm looking into coinarchives and so far found 2 maybe 3.

I'm really struggling with the Domitian Sestertius one. I found a lot similar, but looking at the back, it seems that Jupiter is sitting and holding what looks like a temple to me. With the letters IMYP below it. And maybe some kind of hammer or tool in his other hand.

Anyone know what this means, or can give me another clue?

 

https://rpc.ashmus.ox.ac.uk/coins/2/1018

Smyrna - those initials are ZMYP

I’d love to see the link to EBay to see how the seller described these, do you have it?

 

I agree but could not find it. The reverse legend is long making me wonder if it is a coin of some alliance which is catalogued under some other city. It might have been easier if the reverse were more strange and provided good words for a search. Now I think the obverse is --ianos Kaisaros Germanicos which is unusually spelled out.

That is it. Note the museum specimen is much worse than the JJ.

 

How about 4 per week? Seriously. Four per day is really spammy.

Your Faustina II sestertius is a IVNONI REGINAE type, depicting Juno standing left, holding a patera and scepter and with a peacock (Juno's sacred bird) at her feet. Faustina appears with a variety of hairstyles and headgear on this issue. She's bare-headed on yours; on mine she wears two strands of pearls around her head. She may also wear a stephane on this issue. This reverse type was issued in silver and the sestertius and middle bronze denominations.



Faustina II, AD 147-175.
Roman AE sestertius, 24.02 g, 29.5 mm, 11 h.
Rome, c. AD 162-165.
Obv: FAVSTINA AVGVSTA, draped bust right wearing double circlet of pearls.
Rev: IVNONI REGINAE, Juno standing left, holding patera and scepter, peacock at feet.
Refs: RIC 1651; BMCRE 919-921; Cohen 142; RCV 5278; MIR 19.
Notes: Ex Christian Blom.

 

@JJ Walker I also want to welcome you to CT and to this wonderful hobby.
I'm also a beginner - just celebrated 1 year into ancients.
I fully understand (and like) your enthusiasm and I hope it will remain as this hobby is addictive, educational, time and money consuming

I think you did more than fine with your purchases at least the ones from this thread.

Some random thoughts:
- since Ancients section doesn't have a separate Identification subforum (this might be a good idea) I agree that limiting ID threads is recommended. CT has 20 threads/page, there is a lot of activity here so threads might go soon to 2nd or 3rd page and it's likely that nobody will see/respond. I also recommend 1 coin/thread as you have more chances for a correct answer

- for a while at least, forget about cleaning/restoration. You might ruin coins that are otherwise in good condition

- you need to learn to identify coins yourself also, this is not a fast process so don't get discouraged! In time, you will recognize the portraits and the deities, especially on Imperial coins, I find those the easiest to identify.
For example this one - I knew it was Commodus because I recognized the portrait and I also managed to read the legend (this will also come in time)
M COMMODVS ANT P FELIX AVG BRIT


The reverse is also in good enough condition to see the image and some of the legend


Two people clasping hands, COS V P P in exergue (you need to read what does that mean), it has S C (so this tells me this is an Imperial coin, you also need to check why I concluded his although there is a notable exception) and also the round legend ends in VS ... or even better, ATVS

So I am using this exceptional attribution tool, OCRE, that allows identifying coins using partial legends and you can filter more if you have multiple results

http://numismatics.org/ocre/identify


This is what I wrote and there is only 1 result

http://numismatics.org/ocre/id/ric.3.com.549
So this is your coin and you already know a lot about it.

If you can't read the full obverse legend (I could because I have a little more experience) you can use wild cards as well and type only letters you are 100% sure
m*pfelixavg* - as these are the letters that are very clear on your coin

Another extremely useful websites are acsearch.info and coinarchives.com
With those you can look for designs.
So for example I knew your coin is a Commodus, I knew it's a sestertius due to size and I noticed the reverse type - clasping hands.
So I can use this info to try to identify the coin -
https://www.acsearch.info/search.ht...de=1&fr=1&it=1&es=1&ot=1&currency=usd&order=1

Also brings me to correct result.

Last thing for now - be careful about overpaying, it's easy to spend $200 for a $30 coin - not all coins described as RARE, EXCELLENT CONDITION etc are in fact like this. Give yourself time to learn, it's not a hobby where you will be skilled in 2 weeks. Learn what you like, study the market ... and it will be good.

 

For a one year collector, our friend ambr0zie has come a long way and is a great asset to our little CT family. I hope next year we are saying that about JJ. Over the years, CT has had many fine people come and go with a common interest in these coins and a willingness to help others new to the hobby. We miss the ones who left us for whatever reason. There is always room to add another.

 

@dougsmit - your kind words are flattering. 99% of my knowledge is gathered directly or indirectly via CT. I like the vibe of this forum and the people here.

 

Thank you! I've tried searching for this and can't find anywhere other than your link for those few examples. I'm guessing it must be somewhat rare then. That's really cool. I was hoping to find it on CoinArchives since they seem to list a lot of prices etc but no luck with RPC 1018.

I didn't buy these on ebay. But the place I did buy it from had close to no description other than "Ancient Rome. Moderately rough. Can be attributed with some knowledge of these types." They didn't seem really focused on ancients so I guess they just got these somehow and threw them up for sale.

 

Sounds like I got lucky on this one. TBH the reason I liked this set was because of the color of this particular one.