About 15 years ago, I made an ebay purchase of one of those bags of heavily encrusted ancient coins from a "fresh dig" in Europe somewhere. Spent a (fun) long time cleaning off the crud and identifying them through Wildwinds online database. Pretty wide range -- From Nerva to Justinian. Obvious that it was just a mishmash of coins. Some had Greek text on Roman coins too. Anyway, that is just to preface that this coin could be anything.. It was the only one I couldn't attribute. Appears to be brass and is 4.8 grams and has a diameter of just over 3/4". Has a head facing right on the front and an eagle on the reverse. Appears to have a hole drilled partially on each side in the middle (done sometime later?) Some of the letters as I think I see them are: Obverse : ANT ? Could be a Pi and a Tau? More letters to the right of the head Reverse : To the left above the eagle/bird's head is PAC and to the right is a DEVIT? I had given up, but after joining here, I was flipping through some old coins and saw it again. Hope someone out there has an idea about what it is as it always perplexed me. I can try to get a little better pictures too if that helps. Thanks, Scott
After looking through WildWinds again, I found a coin that is similar to it (but not quite) and surprisingly enough has the same hole on each side. Philip I with PAC DEVLT on reverse with eagle standing left, head right. Any thoughts as to what is up with those holes?
COL PAC DEVLT is the standard reverse legend for the Colony of Deultum Thrace. I believe the OP coin is Gordian III but condition leaves me less than certain. Centration dimples have been discussed many times. Not everyone agrees with my beliefs but theories at least need to address the evidence found on the coins: http://dougsmith.ancients.info/pit.html
Appreciate the post and link, Doug. Glad to see I'm not the only one puzzled by them. I was thinking Gordian III as well, but I couldn't find any examples of Gordian with the PAC DEVLT reverse (copper or brass). Thanks, Scott
http://www.wildwinds.com/coins/greece/thrace/deultum/i.html I'd change my guess to Elagabalus because it seems that Deultum did not use M ANT in the ones listed above but I'm not finding any coins of his from there. I suppose we could count bumps here and see M ANT ONEINOS which was a name used in part by several people but nothing lines up with the ones I see listed: http://www.wildwinds.com/moushmov/deultum.html Obviously, I'm no Deultum expert and a coin this far gone needs experienced eyes.
