Valerian silver, eastern mint ?

[tenbobbit]

Hi Victor,
This coin has been sitting around in my trays for ages without giving it any attention, the fact it is broken probably contributed.

It has all the appearance of an Eastern mint issue but doesn't look like any of the Antioch issues, it also has a very low weight at 1.33g.
Taking into account that approx. 25% is missing would give it a weight somewhere around 1.76g which seems very low to me for a billon Antoninianus, was there such a thing as a Quinnarius issued for him ?

[Victor]

There are quinarii for Valerian, but they are laureate only and yours being radiate is definitely an antoninianus. I would guess it is from Antioch, but Kathy King pointed out "A major difficulty in attributing antoniniani and by extension quinarii in these years to their mint of origin is the absence of marks on the coins giving any indication of where they were minted. The problem is compounded by the fact that under Valerian and Gallienus, mint workers were transferred from one location to another as policy dictated thus making it virtually impossible at times to distinguish coins from different mints on the basis of style." I also quickly checked Gobl (Moneta Imperii Romani) to see if he explains mint differences, but my German is pretty poor. The low weight has to be mainly because of the missing bit; but it might have also been a bit underweight when struck.

[tenbobbit]

Thanks Victor, I wasn't aware of the problems you mention in regards to identifying the mints etc.
I will give a title of - possible Eastern mint, billon antoninianus, slightly underweight.

Thanks again Victor.

Damion