Glad to find this board

[cscoppa]

My name is Chip Scoppa and I collect "Coded Coins" of Probus, Maximian and Diocletian, general Roman Imperial and lately I have tryed to expand my Campgates.

Hope to see some activity here.

[Philip]

Welcome Chip,

The forums were just started recently, but we're working on the improving the catalog daily, and it is bound to draw some more attention soon :)

Philip

[fredweb]

Hi, Can you explain more about these coded coins ?
I'm collecting only the period before the tetrachy... I read about Probus' Ticinum coins coded with EQVITI... but I want to know more !!!

[Vladimir]

Hello Fredweb!

Generally this is an addition to the mint mark. The addition is part of the name of the god/goddesses. I am not sure what the real reason was for that, but probably this is some kind of secure mark like the once on the banknotes today. The combination of Latin and Greek letters plus the correlation between the officina letter and the part of the text used in the code were difficult for understanding since not so many people were well educated to use both languages. Of course the forger could just copy the mint mark the way it is but this is the most acceptable to me idea. Chip has very interesting articles and I really hope he will post something here. I don’t want to retell the story, but I could recommend:



The Translation of the Codewords AEQVITI, IOBI and HPKOYΛI by Gert Boersema (http://www.forumancientcoins.com/forvm/Articles/Codeword_Translation.htm)

East meets West in the Siscia Mule and keeping all in check by Chip Scoppa (http://www.forumancientcoins.com/forvm/Articles/east_meets_west.htm )


'Coded' Antoniniani by Doug Smith (http://dougsmith.ancients.info/code.html)

EQVITI Coins of Probus by Doug Smith (http://dougsmith.ancients.info/equiti.html )


Hope this will help.
Vl.

[fredweb]

Thank you Vladimir ! :)