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Author Topic: Barbarous Imitative , Iovi Conservatori / Constantine  (Read 1579 times)

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rick2

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Barbarous Imitative , Iovi Conservatori / Constantine
« on: April 17, 2011, 02:12:07 pm »
I would like your opinion on this coin

It is a barbarous imitative of a Iovi Conservatori Follis for Constantine / Licinius

the coin weighs 2.7 grams and has diameter of 23mm

the legend is mangled and is neither latin nor greek, and reads IN DONTIN????SSIIC   /    INIDS    AN in exergue and D in field

would it be possible to know where this coin was minted ?
do you know of similar examples ?
why the letters do not match , N are inverted and S rotated ?

I also enclose an original coin for comparison , the pic was taken from wildwinds

thanks

Offline SC

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Re: Barbarous Imitative , Iovi Conservatori / Constantine
« Reply #1 on: April 28, 2011, 05:27:58 am »
Rick,

This is a very interesting coin.  Thanks for posting it.

It is not a type that is often imitated and so you rarely see examples.

The original appears to be RIC VII Antioch 7 struck circa 312-313.

What is interesting is that cast forgeries of this type of coin are common.  Or at least terra-cota forgers moulds of this type of coin are a frequent find in Egypt.  These moulds are made by pressing genuine coins into clay.  Then one would cast bronze copies.  Thus unlike your coin they are very close to the originals in appearance.

Imitative coins come in different groups or classes depending on how close they are to the original. 

There are ones that are almost exact copies which are obviously meant to pass as the real thing.  The Egyptian cast coins are in this class.

There are ones that are close to the real thing (ie all lettering is correct) but can be detected quite easily based on style.  They are meant to be used semi-officially and appear where there was such a shortage of small change that local officials either tolerated such coins or even struck them themselves to fill the need.  These might occasionally have a letter wrong, especially if they are done in a region where the local workers don't speak latin (ie the East).

Then there are those that are more "barbaric" where the lettering is crude and wrong, like yours.  As it really takes no longer to make correct lettering as it does to make wrong lettering it must mean that no one cared what the lettering was.  This generally implies that such coins were intended for use outside the boundaries of the Roman Empire.

In most cases this means "Germany" writ large and included lands east of the Rhine and north of the Danube.  So either your coin too is from this regin and a craftsman just happened this time to copy a coin type from Antioch which nevertheless circulated throughout the Empire OR it could be from an area outside the Empire but closer to Egypt.  Unfortnately I know very little about finds of imitative scoins from Sudan, Arabia, the Caucasus or other areas in the East.

Shawn



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Offline Gert

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Re: Barbarous Imitative , Iovi Conservatori / Constantine
« Reply #2 on: April 28, 2011, 11:15:22 am »
I must disagree with some of the conclusions Shawn draws on this coin. Although I agree with him that this is a type not frequently imitated, I see no reason why it might have had an Antioch type for its prototype. Only the exergue might point to Antioch, but I would think that is a very big guess.
I would say that types from Siscia and Thessalonica would fit the reverse image better, and the style seems to me reminiscent of the later 'epidemic' Laetae imitations.
Furthermore, it is a misconception that this kind of imitation was intended for use outside the boundaries of the Empire. There are many hoards that prove that late Roman imitations circulated along with their prototypes inside the Roman provinces, as a means to add small change to local economies when 'official' supply of coins was unreliable. That is why - in my opinion - these coins are not forgeries like the cast coins you mention. The legends are purposely blundered to set them apart as a group.
Regards
Gert

Offline Robert_Brenchley

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Re: Barbarous Imitative , Iovi Conservatori / Constantine
« Reply #3 on: April 28, 2011, 04:45:25 pm »
Or maybe the engravers weren't interested in the inscriptions, and may have been illiterate. I don't think there's the evidence to draw conclusions about intent.
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Re: Barbarous Imitative , Iovi Conservatori / Constantine
« Reply #4 on: April 29, 2011, 03:24:00 am »
Duhh.  Gert you are absolutely right about the "prototype".  I got so excited to see the "protoype" Rick chose (I love that type) that  the backwards N in the exergue blinded me to the fact that the right field has only the one mark and therefore Siscia and Thes varieties are a much more likely prototype.   Had the right field had the three marks typical of those early Eatsern issues....  Anyway, in the sober light of day I stand well corrected.

(Rick, sorry for leading you astray.  The protoype you showed was the 312-313 era but as Gert says the more likely protoype for yours is a later Balkan issue which could date as late as 321 or even 324.)

Gert, you are right that many imitatives circulate within the Empire.  But was there a difference in those with the "blundered lettering?  I would like to know more about what the hoard evidence says about the "blundered legend type" imitatives.  What sources do you have for hoard information on those?  I have yet to find the distinction between types of imitatives in anything I have read yet.  It is onmy "to do" list to look into this one day.

The UK case is interesting as lots of imitatives of Gloria Exerctivs and FTRs circulated in Britian and some were very crude.  However, they generally shrunk greatly in size so the question of legend is not as relevant as it is with the full-size imitatives like the VLPPs.  In effect you can't really see the legends on the cruder ones to tell if they were faithful or blundered.

I have read before the theory that the legends were purposely blundered on imitatives to set them aside as a group (and at least one author claimed that it was to help avoid the charge of lese majeste/treason) but I have not looked into the evidence enough.  There are certainly far more imitatives done with good lettering and in a close to original style but still easily detectable as imitatives so clearly the need to distinguish them from originals by lettering was not a universal need.

So to me it seems that there must be a different solution to the blundered letter imitatives.  Either a different area of circulation or perhaps it is the theory you mentioned about distinguishing them but it only applied in some times and some areas.  I would like to look into it more to see how contemporary the various classes of imitatives are.  Isn't the VLPP a case where you get many with blundered but also many with faithful inscriptions??  If so wouldn't that complicate your arguement that they did it to distinguish them?

Shawn

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Offline mwilson603

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Re: Barbarous Imitative , Iovi Conservatori / Constantine
« Reply #5 on: April 29, 2011, 06:11:21 am »
Isn't the VLPP a case where you get many with blundered but also many with faithful inscriptions??  If so wouldn't that complicate your arguement that they did it to distinguish them?
Only if you believe that all forgers across the Roman Empire communicated with each other and didn't, in fact, act independantly of each other.

I propose that what we are dealing with here is a combination of factors that decided the type of coin produced, not least of which may be one of the first urban myths.  I will explain my proposal. 
Obviously there will be some counterfeit coinage produced by illiterate forgers and the legends will be blundered for that reason. 
Also, there may well be some legends blundered by literate forgers who simply just got it wrong. We know that we see official coinage with blundered legends sometimes, so that will happen. 
However, there are coins that make no attempt to recreate any kind of legend, indeed some of them are simply a legend made of "IIIIII".  Because even the most illiterate person can copy shapes, I propose the urban myth theory to explain why some didn't even try.

You only have to have seen one episode of "Mythbusters" to know how many things that we hear from peers, are actually complete and utter nonsense.  However, some of our peers will believe the myth as truth, and pass it around to other people.  Also, some will dismiss it completely.  Others will be somewhere in the middle and may adapt their behaviour slightly to avoid the eventuality mentioned in the myth to an extent.

I propose that this is what may have happened with these counterfeits. In this case I propose that the myth that was circulating was "if the coin was clearly not official, you couldn't be found guilty of the worst crime of "lese majeste/treason"".  Some people reacted to this myth and deliberately blundered their product to ensure they would be able to avoid that charge.  Others knew that it was not true anyway and produced a more faithful representation of the real coin.  Again, I imagine that there were many counterfeiters across the empire who would have reacted to this myth in differing ways.
I believe that, on top of standard thoughts about literacy, this may explain why we see such a wide range of counterfeit styles.

regards

Mark

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Re: Barbarous Imitative , Iovi Conservatori / Constantine
« Reply #6 on: April 29, 2011, 09:12:29 am »
Mark,

Very interesting theory.  It certainly provides a possible answer to my concern.

And you are right to point out that the producers of these coins were not a monolithic group who acted in concert.

I notice that you use the term counterfeiters.  I guess anyone making an imitation was literally a counterfeiter.  But who do you believe that these people were? 

My own understanding is that at least in the cases of the common or widespread imitations the production was semi-official.  In other words they were made to meet a shortage of, usually, small change in a specific region and timeframe and that these were at least tolerated by local officials if not made with their collusion. 

This still gives great scope for possible scenarios.  At one extreme are the early to mid 1st century bronzes (mostly Claudian asses) from Britain and Spain where at least the first generation of imitations are thought to have been produced in military camps.  Others scanarios include local provincial or municipal officials, or money changers or private "bankers". 

Obviously there must have been other cases as well where what we would consider today a criminal gang or corrupt official made imitations purely for profit.

Shawn
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rick2

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Re: Barbarous Imitative , Iovi Conservatori / Constantine
« Reply #7 on: April 29, 2011, 10:02:02 am »
thanks for all your reply !


Offline mwilson603

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Re: Barbarous Imitative , Iovi Conservatori / Constantine
« Reply #8 on: April 29, 2011, 03:48:00 pm »
I notice that you use the term counterfeiters.  I guess anyone making an imitation was literally a counterfeiter.  But who do you believe that these people were? 

To be fair, I imagine it to be similar to yourself I think.  Whilst Rome/emperor had overall control, the differing governors would possibly have a requirement to alleviate localised economic issues, and maybe without drawing attention to themselves in Rome.  As such I also believe that some of the coinage we call "barbarous" was probably semi-officially sanctioned, or at least a blind eye was turned to it's existence if it helped the situation for the local leadership. 

That however complicates the above theory further, as anyone producing coinage on a semi-official basis would try and produce coinage that looked close to the real thing.

Of course, if there were semi-official coins mingling with the official coinage, then any potential counterfeiter is going to see an opportunity to produce their own coins and mingle them as well.  In short, if people are quite happily using coins that look slightly unofficial, then the counterfeiter has more chance of moving his coins into circulation.

regards

Mark

rick2

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Re: Barbarous Imitative , Iovi Conservatori / Constantine
« Reply #9 on: April 30, 2011, 08:53:56 am »
i spoke with the vendor and he does not remember where he got this coin from.

could this be an imitative struck for use in places outside the roman empire , as you said before , could this come from Germany or even a tribe that was even further away from the roman border , in a place like Ukraine ?

Offline Gert

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Re: Barbarous Imitative , Iovi Conservatori / Constantine
« Reply #10 on: April 30, 2011, 10:28:37 am »
- Rick, to answer your question: no, probably not. Although a stray Roman coin may have been copied incidentally outside the borders of the Roman empire for whatever reason, the vast majority of these imitative coins circulated within the Roman provinces. There is no evidence that imitative coins were intended for use outside the empire (if there is, please tell me).

- Shawn, the problem with any statement on 'imitative types' is of course that we are dealing with a phenomenon that went on for 5 centuries and there are a lot of different types of imitations, with an enormous amount of variation in 'crudeness'. However, the VLPP's from the Balkans tend te be much cruder than the imitations of western types.

- As for the hoard data, Bastien's article in Museum Notes 30 (1985), on late Roman imitations (a highly important read), cites hoards and prior scholarship. His article shows that the majority of imitative issues circulated (1) in the same area where their prototypes circulated and (2) were produced not long after their prototypes were minted. So the irregular workshops imitated what was in circulation at their place and time - which implies that VLPP's of the Balkan type are typically not found in Gaul or Britain.
I have a page on a hoard from Königsforst, near Cologne, that will illustrate these points beautifully (http://www.oudgeld.com/webbib/commglor.htm)

- And about the illiteracy of the counterfeiters: I think that the notion that coins with 'blundered' legends were produced by illiterate people is tied to the notion that they were produced by 'barbarians' outside the Roman borders. As I said before, this last notion is a misconception. It is my opinion, that they were purposely blundered to set the irregular/'semi-official' coinage apart from 'official' coinage, and that this phenomenon does not have much to do with lack of interest or illeteracy. Of course, I cannot prove this, all I can do is try and make it probable.
Regards
Gert

Offline PeterD

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Re: Barbarous Imitative , Iovi Conservatori / Constantine
« Reply #11 on: April 30, 2011, 12:47:51 pm »
Perhaps a reason for blundered legends is not that the makers were illiterate, but that in their area of circulation the population were mainly illiterate. Why make extra work when it's not neccessary. That would mean that the area was fairly remote with few coins coming in from outside. Locally produced coins would be welcomed, even if they weren't 'proper' coins as they would boost the local economy.

Conversely, imitatives intended for more urban areas may have been needed to be more closely identified with the official coinage to be accepted, with incriptions that would look correct at first glance.

Early numismatists erroneously thought that imitatives found in Britain had been made after the Romans had left, by the invading 'barbarians'. Unfortunately the name 'barbarous' has stuck. As far as I know none were made outside Roman borders. Well not entirely true - imitative roman coinage had developed over centuries in places like India.
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