You're welcome Doug.
Please understand that the additional hints are not always 100% correct, especially when you look at them individually. The decisive caracteristic of the 4th oriental
mint IMHO remains the
style of the emperor's
portrait.
I encourage you to download S.Estiot's paper even if your
French is not perfect, if only for the photos of all the coins identified by S.Estiot as being from the 4th oriental
mint (and classified by her in subsequent emmissions). It's much easier to learn the caracteristic
style of that
mint when you look at several coins from that
mint.
Additionally, I encourage you to consult the new probuscoins.fr website created by Christophe Oliva. It's a new (and ongoing) database project for the coinage of
Probus. You can
search for
Probus coins there with the use of different criteria, including by different mints (atelier in
French). So choose "4e atelier oriental" and you will have photos of all the coins fron the 4th oriental
mint to study.
As far as your two coins are concerned, they are both from the
Antiochia mint.
The first coin from the 8th
officina (H letter) should be easily classified as being from the
Antiochia mint as it meets all the criteria described earlier, i.e. it has an I V M letter instead of "M", has a big ball for
Victory instead of a small one, does not have a dot after the letter "H" and is from the 8th
officina which did not exist at the 4th oriental
mint. Last but not least the
style of the
portrait is clearly from
Antiochia not the 4th oriental
mint.
The second coin from the 9th
officina indeed has a small globe and an integral "M", i.e. elements typical fot the 4th oriental
mint. However the 9th
officina at
Antiochia (opened in 280 AD for the purpose of second emmission according to K.
Pink) is exceptional - it was most likely managed by an engraver who came from the
Serdica mint (closed in 280 AD). If you look closely you will see that the
style of the emperor's
portrait in the 9th
officina is very much similar to the
Serdica coins and very much different from the
style of the remaining
officinae at
Antiochia. It is definitely a finer
style. The fact that the 9th
officina at
Antiochia was managed by a different (more capable) engraver might also explain the differences in the lettering and the globe.
I
hope this helps.
Best,
Barnaba