Bronze Gordian Antoninianus

[Victrix]

Hello friends,

Has anyone ever seen one of these before? I never heard of limes ants so I’m quite confused as to what this was used for. A fourree core also makes no sense to me.

 

Any insights ? 😄

[rasiel]

Going to go out on a limb here and speculate that it's just a heavily patinated silver ant. If you'd like I can have it XRF'd for you. No charge, just shipping to and from.

Rasiel

[Roman Collector]

31 minutes ago, rasiel said:

Going to go out on a limb here and speculate that it's just a heavily patinated silver ant. If you'd like I can have it XRF'd for you. No charge, just shipping to and from.

Rasiel

Reminds me of this "as found' toned denarius in my collection.

[Ancient Coin Hunter]

I believe sometimes the base metals react to the environment and overpower the silver content in terms of appearance. At the time of Gordian I think antoniniani were around 35% silver. I have a Severus' denarius that is green for example and it is not a fouree.

[-monolith-]

15 hours ago, Victrix said:

Hello friends,

Has anyone ever seen one of these before? I never heard of limes ants so I’m quite confused as to what this was used for. A fourree core also makes no sense to me.

 

Any insights ? 😄

I have a small collection of "Limes" coins and most of them are denarii, however they were also minted as antoninianus. Here are some from my collection which show various metals (zinc and bronze) as well as different manufacturing methods (hammered and cast).

 

hammered zinc denarius

 

cast zinc denarius

 

hammered zinc denarius

 

hammered zinc denarius

cast bronze denarius

 

hammered zinc denarius

 

hammered bronze denarius

 

 

 

[hotwheelsearl]

Apparently Gordian did mint something called the "reduced dupondius," which might look similar.

Howver, it's possible that this is heavily patinated as others have stated. Here is one with one side extremely bright silver with the other side entirely dull:

 

Another option is this was plated or silvered and it simply wore off, similar to this Claudius example where the process was in progress:

Edited December 1, 2024 by hotwheelsearl
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