Ancient Spelling Correction!

[manpace]

Found a Claudius Gothicus with the "DIVS AVG" spelled out as "DIIIIIIIIIIG".  But notice the lazy S.  Looks like after carving in all the I's, the engraver had to account for the missing letter, and rather than starting over with a new die, he carved loops in to connect the I's and make the S that you see.

Grammar Nazis are as old as civilization, apparently.

EDIT: When I examine at it up close, it looks like the I's came first and then the swoops.  But perhaps the engraver appreciated the clean, tidy line of IIIIIIIIII, and wanted his S to fit in stylistically.

[maridvnvm]

This looks like what is referred to as a "barbarous imitative" and not an official product. The engravers were not literate and we see a lot of IIIIs on these.
Regards,
Martin

[areich]

Please always post pictures of the whole coin. A coin has two sides, this is half a coin.

[manpace]

This looks like what is referred to as a "barbarous imitative" and not an official product. The engravers were not literate and we see a lot of IIIIs on these.
Regards,
Martin

Definitely barbarous.  Seeing all the IIIII's is no surprise, but turning three of them into a lazy S is.  Suggests someone on the scene knew how to read, or at least appreciated the pleasing uniformity of III over the jangling dissonance of intelligible words but was still required to spell out the letters.

[areich]

It's a perfectly normal 'barb'. They didn't just use Is, some few got the legend right, on others it's complete gibberish and there are many that are in-between. Same with the portraits and reverse depictions. I don't think they cared much about how close they were to the original and some may have copied coins that were imitations to begin with.