Huh... Well this was unexpected!

[paleomaxx]

Seriously, never though I would dig one of these in a million years. Certainly not in Massachusetts of all places! I was at an old 1750's house and after a couple dozen of the usual late 18th to late 19th century targets I finally get a big old copper tone and in the plug is a fat green rim. Looked a lot like a George I halfpenny before the dirt came off, but nope:



1700 year old Roman Coin!!! That Maine penny has nothing on this; someone phone National Geographic!

Yeah I know, more recent loss, but still shocking to see out of the soil. It's in superb shape too. It was on a hillside and the soil was almost pure sand so what little patina is on there may be from the original burial over in Europe.



Granted I'm far from an expert in Roman coins but I believe it's Constantine the Great and then on the reverse is Genius standing left, holding a patera and cornucopia. All the lettering is well struck and bold except for the mintmark, which figures. I think it's ALE for Alexandria but it really is nearly completely missing. I haven't been able to find an exact match for this issue and stranger still is that "POPVLI" has an extra "O" making "POPOVLI." Ancient typo?

I'm pretty sure this was a souvenir brought back from WWII. Not even two feet away I found a child's pewter army man and the person who lived at this house between the 1930's and 1980's served in the army during WWII. He passed away in 1992 so I'm still trying to find his exact service history but if he participated in the Liberation of Italy (or really anywhere in the European theater) then it's a good bet that he picked it up for his kid and the kid dropped it in the yard some time later. At any rate, a find of a lifetime for a New England detectorist and in fantastic shape to boot! I expect this will be a good conversation piece for years to come.

Any further insight into the coin itself would be appreciated, I gather that the bearded busts correspond to the earlier years of his rule, but I don't know if that's a firm rule or just a general one.

 

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[erfranks]

Awesome Find!!...

 

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[Iron Patch]

Not exactly what I expected!

 

[Silvermonkey]

Here's proof that you just never know what's going to come out of the ground next. A wonderful recovery for sure. Congrats!!!!

 

[paleomaxx]

Cru'dad's latest investigation:

'' I have found that for 1 year there was a */A in field of Siscia types minted in 301AD where the Exergue* of *SIS was moved into left field. Weight would be 10.5-8.5gm with 6 or 12O’C die axis. However this field set-up is only recorded for SACRA MONET etc types and the Obverse for that year was CONSTANTIVS NOB CAES with a FL VAL CONSTANTIVS NOB CAE (NO S END) was used on Siscia MONETA (not Genio) folles in 300AD but had no * in left field only in Exergue.

So if not contemporary or more modern imitation, this has an outside chance to be an error coin minted in Siscia circa 301AD especially if weight and die axis line up too.''

As it's so unusual & can't be matched with our library books Cru'dad has reached out to our British Museum contact for answers. It's going to be something unusual or a bust, we think. Fingers crossed.

You guys are rock stars; incredible research and I can't thank you enough!

It took awhile, but I finally got a hold of a sufficiently accurate gram scale:



It came in at 9.96 grams (+0.02g). The die alignment is ↑↑ and almost no rotation between each side. Let me know if your British Museum contact needs any further info or photos, I'm quite excited to hear what the verdict is on this!

 

[CRUSADER]

You guys are rock stars; incredible research and I can't thank you enough!

It took awhile, but I finally got a hold of a sufficiently accurate gram scale:

It came in at 9.96 grams (+0.02g). The die alignment is ↑↑ and almost no rotation between each side. Let me know if your British Museum contact needs any further info or photos, I'm quite excited to hear what the verdict is on this!

Good news, no red flags there.
As it's a 12o Die Axis, it might point towards an official mint. The barbarous imitations of the period tended to get this wrong.
No further photo's needed, I'm looking forward to the response as well, fingers crossed it's not a super good modern fake.

 

[CRUSADER]

Spoke to soon.
Just got the reply from the BM;

''Many thanks for sending this one through to us.

Unfortunately, as this isn’t a British find I’m not able to help with an ID for the coin I’m afraid. As the BM follows various national and international codes of ethics (details here: https://www.britishmuseum.org/our-work/departments/coins-and-medals#object-identification ), we can’t offer advice on objects where the provenance is unclear.

Sorry that isn’t of much help – the best place to check would be in the notes of RIC volume VI (if you haven’t already done so) in case there is any mention there, or one of the more recent hoard catalogues for anything similar (e.g. https://www.jstor.org/stable/42668206?seq=1#metadata_info_tab_contents ; although this will be a British hoard, which will have generally fewer eastern mint coins).''

We have tried RIC VI, not in it.
Not tried the hoard Cat. but will let you try, as it's a dead end for us, you may need to find another channel! (Hopefully worth the effort)

 

[grasshopper]

That's crazy. What are the chances? Cool find, and great research all in trying to identify.