Ancient Coins: Roman Mints Ep.1
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- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 25 มิ.ย. 2021
- The Romans were among one of the most monetized societies of the ancient world. They had coins for everything: From small pocket change to buy your daily bread to gold coins worth months of salary for a skilled labourer. Such a reliance on coins meant a substantial networks of mints were established, producing coins in industrial quantities.
Today, lets explore some of these important mints, and look at some examples from each mint.
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This is one of the best coin channels on youtube, bravo!
Thanks! I do my best :)
This is a particularly helpful video for those just starting out collecting coins of the Roman Empire. Speaking for myself, when I began collecting I just assumed Roman coins were all minted in Rome, or at least the Italian peninsula. I'd never heard of places like Antioch or Lugdunum. But through coins minted in such far-flung cities that might not even exist anymore, a collector is able to travel throughout the empire and pick up little pieces of their specific cultural contributions to the empire.
When you start looking at banker marks on coins, it starts getting REALLY interesting, as you can start tracking a single coin's path across the ancient world.
Another very well done video. You are very good at this.
Thanks! There´s a long way to go before Im fully professional at that, but I do my best :)
Very informative video! I really prefer coins from the Trier and Lugdunum mints, they usually have a higher quality than similar coins from other mints. Also, 'rare' mints are nice to collect, these are Roman mints which operated only for a couple of years: Carthage, Tripolis, Serdica, Viminacium, Ostia, Camulodunum and Amiens
Alexandria is my favorite Provincial mint. No other mint has such varied reverses nor showcases the local culture better, except Rome of course.
I´d agree with you on that! The Alexandrian mint is a wonderful treasure trove of Egyptian symbology in coin form.
Very interesting and in-depth video. Keep going 👏!
Thanks! I need to make some more episodes. Leaving Carthage, Lugdunum, Cyzikus, among others out feels like a crime!
If you're looking for good silver content in a mid-late 3rd century coin, the eastern mints are usually bigger and have respectable silver. Some of Gallienus best silver coins are from eastern mints like Antioch and Samosata
When it comes to late imperial mints, Aquileia , opened by Maximian in 294 and destroyed by the Huns in 437, is fascinating.
great video my friend. Top work 🙂
That Constantine got you curious, didnt it?? ;)
@@ClassicalNumismatics NOOOOO…. 😉
one of the most interesting if not the best numistmatic YT channel. ..greetings from italy!
Fantastic work as usual.
Thanks Lance! This means a lot coming from you
👋
Great Video!
Great video. I am just starting to collect gold roman coins and this video helped me learn a lot in just a few minutes. Thank you!! You have earned another follower!
Thats amazing! Which coin do you plan getting?
@@ClassicalNumismatics I would like to buy gold coins for all emperors and the republic. I was thinking of buying on gold coin for every emperor. That will take time and lots of $$ but it would be a great collection. I definitely want to buy a Scipio Africanus' gold coin, if it exists. I read a book on him and thought he was just amazing. Any suggestions?
Thanks
Another great video. Keep up the good work.
Thanks, Charles! People seemed to like quite a bit knowing the Roman mints, I should make a continuation soon!
The mint at London was operating since 287 thanks to Carausius, seemed odd to omit that point when you mentioned Trier and Probus (although that is a whole other mess considering the arguments around which coins are actually Trier and which are Lyon).
Gotta love C-Mint of Carausius and how much people argue for its location.
Thats a valid argument thanks for commenting it here so people can see it!
Consider my interpretation of the London mint's opening year as being opened "officially" by the central Roman authority.
Really great video once again. I am looking forward to your presentation on the Lugdunum mint. The bulk of my collection has been minted in Rome, but I have 2 particularly beautiful coins minted in Lugdunum, a denarius of Augustus and a dupondius of Nero.
One of the most beautiful coins to ever appear in this channel, a really nice Sestertius of Emperor Nero was minted in Lugdunum.
they definitely had an engraving quality par on par with that of Rome!
I am very interested in the way the dyes were made to strike the coins, as well as finding the procedure the mints were taking to strike all these beauties!
Excellent video, as always!
I have an entire video on coin manufacture, you should have a look!
BRAVO, but please make a video on Roman Egypt coins in ALEXANDRIA and on the coins of Alexander the Great stuck in Egypt
That is a very cool topic I need to make in detail, particularly so for the roman alexandrian pieces I like so much.
Love your channel!!! So much history lessons fed though the world of coinage.... I have a question, do you also collect the (I don't know what they are called) thing they used to make /mint the coins? Those I supposedly are even more rare.. And if so, how has the one used to met de Athena Owl?
Thanks for the kind words Ruben, glad you like it!
You probably mean the coin dies. No, I do not, but I have seen some go for auction every now and then, generally in very sorry state. No, there are no coin dies on the market for the Athenian owl, maybe in a museum somewhere!
@@ClassicalNumismatics ah yes coin dies, thanks for that. I got into coin collecting 4 years ago an just recently that Im really diving deep into ancient coin history. I have a couple of favorites that I hope to own in the next couple of years but by far my favorite is the Athena Owl tetradrachm. I found one online that has the perfect specs. I started saving and hope it will still be there when I saved enough.. Will see. For now keep up the good work!
Favorite mint: London
I'm curious, how quickly did dies wear out
I am so happy with these. As a antiquity department volunteer you are really helping my understanding. May I ask what is your background?
Im very glad to help! Curiously I have no background on history whatsoever, Im an industrial designer by trade and a massive history nerd :)
@@ClassicalNumismatics I'm a volunteer in the numismatic department of the Israel antiquities authority...I have a smattering of archaeology background but your tutorials bring it into such clear focus. Many thanks
Awesome videos, keep up the good work. A couple of points (although I am not an expert), I don’t believe Aequitas and her scales were ever symbolised to weigh coins, rather they weighed justice, fairness and equality. Also, the debasement of the Tetradrachm from Alexandria was initiated during the sole rule of Gallienus in 259/260… a couple of hundred years after Nero. Loving your videos, subscribed and looking forward to the next one
Yep, you are right. Aequitas is all about equality and fair dealings, thats where I got my reference for, since after all scales were indeed used in commerce very frequently :)
I will disagree, however, on your point of the Alexandrian Tetradrachm. Egyptian provincial coinage was always an insular monetary system closely tied to the main roman silver purity rates. By the time of Commodus for example, when debasement starts to become a small, but noticeable problem, you start seeing the Alexandrian Tets reflect the same debasement, so I'll stick to my point there.
In fact, Tets from Nero are very common nowadays due to them being heavily hoarded by people. Apparently as Nero debased the imperial denarius to pay for the relief efforts on Rome, he also withdrew Egyptian Tets to debase and remint them with the same lower silver content, reinforcing this point.
Thanks for watching! I'll definitely post more in the future.
Does this channel have a video on how metals were found, extracted, and prepared for minting?
Yes it does, its called "Ancient Coins: Coin Manufacture".
I dont go over the part of finding and extracting the metals, this isnt really my expertise, but I do go over some of the steps on the preparation of the material prior to striking the coin. I hope you like it!
@@ClassicalNumismatics thank you !!
`very informative vid, as is the norm from you.
however, you didn't explain how one identifies where the coins were minted, apart from one coin.
perhaps in future vids, you will explain how you identify the mint.
thank you.
That´s because identifying mints is not as straightforward as on that particular coin! :)
Most roman coins dont have mintmarks, so they need to have their mints identified by style, or via catalogues. And there are plenty of videos already teaching how someone does research on their own coins.
Marvellous video; informative and well produced. Many thanks.