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<p>[QUOTE=&quot;Eyestrain, post: 941788, member: 24213&quot;]The backwards D on &quot;H&quot; is actually just a bad G in the legend VICT AVGG COS II PP. It&#039;s a limes denarius, a bronze copy of the official silver denarii. It was issued in border regions commonly during the Severan dynasty. Some were struck, others were cast, and the reasons for these issues are open to speculation. They fall under the umbrella of &quot;emergency currency&quot; but the economic details are uncertain.</p><p><br /></p><p>I love Severan coins, but I&#039;m a little wary of the limes. Early on, my very first Severans were bought cheap from a reasonably well-known and fairly reputable dealer. I wasn&#039;t too sure what I was buying at the time, but the price was right and I found them appealing. Once I started buying some better examples from the dynasty, I knew there was something off about my initial purchases and eventually concluded they were fakes. Then I learned about the limes denarii, which really only confused matters. Although my limes are clearly of the cast variety, there&#039;s a question whether they were cast in antiquity or modern times.</p><p><br /></p><p>The dealer still sells limes denarii (now more clearly labeled as limes) and has even had them authenticated by a respected authority. But a lot of the ancient coin collecting community have concluded that he&#039;s offering modern cast fakes and I tend to agree. Although there&#039;s a variety of types he sells, they&#039;re all too consistent and similar -- possibly even identical in some cases, though I haven&#039;t bothered to watch his auctions closely enough to confirm this.</p><p><br /></p><p>Suffice to say, I prefer to concentrate on the official releases from the Rome mint. So I would likely pass on this Septimius Severus unless I saw I really tempting price on it.</p><p><br /></p><p>But I would happily grab all the barbarous imitations. I love the often wild stylistic interpretations of common Roman types these tribal engravers would come up with. The more outlandish, the better. The only ones I stay away from are the types that are such good copies, it&#039;s questionable whether they&#039;re official or not (I like the answer to that question to be obvious). But if the legend screams illiteracy and the portrait looks like a monstrous cartoon, I&#039;m in![/QUOTE]</p><p><br /></p>

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