ISEGRIM was a large searchable online database of ancient coins from Asia Minor.

We would probably start with only:

vt:caracalla rt:zeus po:saitta

If you get a long list of results, the screen search (Control-F) may help you screen the results for a more specific term or reference.

If you get too many results, add ONE additional aspect and try again.

Θ (Theta) -> T '
Y or V (Upsilon) -> Y
P (Phi) -> P '
X (Chi) -> C '
ψ (Psi) -> P ' ' (two apostrophes, not one quotation-mark)

       (***) If these were non-historical figures -- mythic persons or personified abstractions -- the inputs would read instead vt:head man r rt:head woman r, where as always in Isegrim searches the multiple inputs involve an invisible "and" (really = "both ... and"); more on classification-distinctions like "head" vs. "portrait" at the end of Reply #1.

--- There is after all a way to search by weight (gew) or size (gr) as well as by minting-dates (pz) in Isegrim: along with other relevant descriptors, for weights enter a lesser and greater value -- gew1:3.72 gew2:3.82, for example -- which are processed as lower and upper weight-limits and give you everything in between.  (If any specimen in a particular entry has a weight that 's within your weight-range, it will show up as part of your search results.) Something similar holds for gr1 / gr2 inputs (see new demo) as well as for minting-dates (pz1 / pz2); from the updated English introduction at

http://isegrim.dasr.de/isegrim/anleitung_e.html

followed up with a trial-run or two, I 've concluded that this is the gist of it: you can input one year, e.g. pz:18, in the hopes that it corresponds closely with the date of the entry you 're seeking, or else you can enter an earliest and latest, e.g. pz1:10 pz2:60, and get everything that was probably minted in that range for the other descriptors in your search-string.  MAJOR CAUTION: Being copied from a great variety of sources, not all Isegrim entries include weight, size, and minting-date specs (though they generally do give at least one or two), so a targeted search with particular weight, size, or minting-date specs may miss coins that are actually in Isegrim. By a similar token, you may miss coins included in Isegrim if your input includes legend-inputs that do not allow for any variants or faults in the legends recorded in Isegrim. HELPFUL HINT: Subject to the potential exclusions that I just now mentioned, you can also employ bounded searches of these various sorts to cut down a broad yield of results to a manageable size; while a very broad search, for example vt:.*os, yields too many results to display, vt:.*os gr1:22 gr2:24 yields 470 results, just below the 500 truncation-point.


The coin pictured below is a badly misidentified Caracalla AE25 -- "Artemis and Apollo from Seleucia [!]" -- that I recently purchased on Xbax.  Searching Isegrim with the search-string vt:caracalla rt:heads 2 rt:head man l gr1:24 gr2:26 (vt -- obverse type; rt -- reverse type; gr1 -- boundary-size #1; gr2 -- boundary-size #2) we get Hygieia and Asklepios from Eirenopolis, Cilicia, which the legend confirms is correct.

--- Isegrim includes virtually all Asia Minor listings from RPC I and from Lindgren III ("SLG LINDGREN III"), so its coverage extends down through 1992 and 1993, when those volumes were printed, and somewhat beyond (just two listings from SNG München (Munich) 20 [1995] and only intermittent listings from RPC II, printed 1999; I have noted one listing corrected in 2001, a single auction referenced from 2002 [AUKT GORNY 118 1720], and one study repeatedly cited from 2003 [ZIEGLER AMS 2003]); many hundreds of entries from SNG PFALZ 6 = PfPS 6, also published in 2001; you can test other SNG coverage by searching zit:.*SNG X.* where X stands for the rest of an SNG title, for which now see the SNG titles below in Reply #9).   With the search-entry zit: or vgl: (for "Compare") and a catalogue-entry in form "RPC I 2417.*," for example, you can summon up virtually everything else that 's included in a given printed entry from RPC I; Isegrim is thus also a digital RPC I for Asia Minor, and a digital version of whatever else Isegrim incorporates, though its uptake of RPC I seems especially thorough and painstaking.  Isegrim includes some coins not others for marginal figures and mints, for example, "Rhoemetalces" or "Cyprus"; here you 're definitely better off using alternative sources, not mainly relying on Isegrim.

--- Field-insignia (VF, RF) and countermarks (VG, RG) can be very useful in worn-coin ID 's, but the Isegrim entries for all these descriptors have quirks of their own; a good way to explore them is to run open searches with each of the pertinent descriptors (VF, RF, VG, or RG:.*), and then see what you get.  Letter-content appears with a prefix intended to sort letters, values, and dates ("LET AS," "VALUE I," "YEAR GXR" = 163); letter-content in VF or RF will also appear in VS or RS, but without the fresh prefix (thus RF: YEAR GXR but RS: P 'LAYIOPOLEITWN ET GXR). Here is a more or less typical output for an obverse countermark arrangment; note that each of the terms constitutes a good input in its own right:

VG : ROUND / VALUE D / ROUND / HEAD MAN L / EMPEROR

"Round," "oval," and "angular" are often but not always used to distinguish the shape of a countermark-strike; in this case repetition of "round" means we actually two obverse countermarks on the same coin, with "head man l" and "emperor" both referring to the second round countermark 's subject or content.  These descriptions can vary even for the same countermark; thus these all seem to be the same countermark on coins from Lydia ad Sipylum, Magnesia:

VG : ROUND / HEAD WOMAN R / TYCHE
VG : ROUND / HEAD WOMAN R / TYCHE / WITH / TURRETED
VG : ROUND / HEAD R / WITH / RADIATE

Numbers in parentheses found in some of these entries indicate which specimens out of several described display which field-insignia or which countermarks; these distinctions are not always clear and not always complete, but still often help fix a coin 's provenance.  Isegrim reports some but not all of the Howgego numbers for cited Greek Imperial countermarks; Howgego can thus complement Isegrim and vice versa, since Howgego does not report pre-Imperial coins which quite often share countermarks with later issues.

--- If you are searching particular divinities ' names it 's important to follow the name with a wildcard-extender, for example "zeus.*; without that, the search won 't include special cult-aspects of Zeus, for example Zeus Kelaeneus or Zeus Lydios (other random examples: Artemis Ephesia or Hekate Triformis, and remarkably also Zeus Sarapis; note that some cultic names like "Kelaeneus" are oddly half-Latinized).  Generally speaking you shouldn 't give up on a name-search without trying a few wildcard-extenders, since there are some erroneous name-entries in Isegrim (*) and since the formats and spellings of Romanized Greek names will vary more often than not.  (Transcribed Greek forms are favored for Greek personal names -- but not place-names -- in Isegrim, e.g. Nikias, Herakles, Dionysos, Asklepios, but again this is not altogether consistent, as witness half-Latinized "Hephaestos.")  Similarly, if it 's not absolutely clear who is depicted on either the obverse or reverse of your coin-type, you will need to review all the plausible candidates till you actually find a clear match; not all beards make a Zeus or a Herakles.  If you are not sure whether a left- or a right-facing portrait is historical or quasi-mythical, you should probably search vt:.* man l or vt:.* man r, since Isegrim reserves the term "portrait" for portraits of historical subjects; even a coin-profile of the personified Senate is classed as a "head" not a "portrait."  In connection with two-portrait coins where there 's room for debate about which side is "heads" Isegrim sometimes wavers or duplicates entries; in those cases you should always search twice, switching entries for obverse (vt: / vs:) and reverse (rt: / rs:).

--- As I noted in the original posting, in Isegrim there is often an arbitrary side to what form an "exact" input takes (even place-names include some anomalies, e. g. "Trajanopolis" for "Traianopolis"); there are too many instances for me to note here, so you will want to note them for yourselves, for example, "pricecrown" for a prize-crown or urn, "temple-front of 4 columns" for the (four-columned) face of a temple, "stern decoration" for aplustre, "branch laurel"  or "wreath laurel" for a laurel branch or laurel wreath, and so on.  The most singular case I have noted: on coins picturing the Rape of Persephone, she is listed as Attribute rather than Type (a mere Attribute at her own rape?), and called "kore" instead of "persephone," thus rt:hades ra:kore, probably just because Hades is holding her.   Deployed various ways, there are other motifs that can show up as "types" or as "attributes," infants, animals, or birds, to name several; since there are a few verbs used to modify "animal" in Isegrim, i.e., fighting, jumping, sitting, or standing, you may do well to follow "animal" (and indeed other substantives, "wreath" or "branch" for example) with a wildcard-extender (= .*).  "Infant" oddly may call for a leading or preceding wildcard-extender ("vt:.* INFANT" or "rt:.* INFANT") to gain access to any tagged variants, for instance "HORUS INFANT" or "PLUTUS INFANT."

   (*) Some stealth-errors in the way names are entered in Isegrim produce entries that look right but actually aren 't; I discuss one example at

https://www.forumancientcoins.com/board/index.php?topic=46261.msg289816#msg289816

If a type ought to show up in Isegrim, it generally will, but it may take a few variations on your search-parameters.