Proof that barbarous coins are pretty rare.....

[Diederik]

I have always liked a pungent title, but yes I found some nice coins:
The first one has been in my Pius collection long, as it bears nr 91 and the one I got this week is 478.
They are both imitations of a dupondius RIC 933 with a reverse that reads ERTAS COS IIII instead of LIBERTAS COS IIII
I think both items are of the same dies, but 478 has a defect at 12 o'clock on the obverse and must have been struck slightly later than 91.
They are both light for dupondii: 9.30 and 6.65 respectively. Same die usually means small output or extreme luck.
Wonder what you think of them.


Frans

addendum: they were both found in England!

[okidoki]

very nice 

[djmacdo]

Fascinating coins.  There seem to be more second century bronzes copies in Britain than elsewhere.  Whenever I get to look at second century bronzes I carry a small magnet, hoping to discover one of the rare bronze over iron core imitations.  They are mainly or perhaps from northern Britain.  I have seen a couple, but never found one.

[PeterD]

Early (British) numismatists coined (no pun intended) the phrase 'barbarous radiates' because they thought that they were produced by the Angles, Saxons and Jutes who moved in to Britain when the Romans left. It has since been shown that they were, in fact, contemporaneous with the coins they imitate. So not really produced by 'barbarians' unless you consider the Romanised inhabitants of Britain and Gaul to be barbarians.

[Gert]

Nice find. Made my think of this pair of imitative dupondii of Trajan that I had a couple of years ago. Imitations of RIC 385 (Prototype).
Regards
Gert