(objective?) criteria for distinguishing barbarous imitation

[Goodies]

Aantekening: deze thread is in het Engels. Ik geef liever geen samenvatting in het Nederlands, omdat het niet de bedoeling is om hier in het Nederlands te reageren. Dat lijkt misschien merkwaardig op "munstukken", maar ik heb van de gelegenheid gebruik gemaakt, een Amerikaanse expert uit te nodigen om deel te nemen aan deze thread. Hij is intussen lid geworden (!), hem heb ik een Engelse thread beloofd, vandaar..

Dus svp in je beste Engels reageren hier..

Aveeeee, 
Goodies

On this forum and ForumAncientCoins, several ideas have emerged about distinguishing between 'Barbarous' and 'Official' roman coins. This distinction is important for roman coin collectors: for some of us, barbaric imitations are not interesting, for others very interesting.

Differences between the "muntstukken" and "Forumancient" experts' approach exist. While ForumAncient, e.g. the expert adrianus, regards style of portrait and reverse arts as a primary distinctive criterium, the "muntstukken" approach is based on more technical observations, specific aspects like size, lettering details and die tooling technique.

At this point, I wonder wether these two approaches can be combined in some way, that is when talking about style, would it be possible to express objective criteria ? On the other hand, could it be so that the "muntstukken" approach takes things into account that are actually less important ?

In his observations on ForumAncient regarding an Urbs Roma coin (of the kind that we would consider official !) I confronted " adrianus"  with our primary criteria. In reply, the following remark was made about the criteria used, quote

As for 'proof' that irregular coins are irregualr, all the metallurgical analyses carried out (and we're looking at a few dozen here) on wolf and twins coinage show official coins to have a small silver content (c1-2%) whilst irregular coins have none whatsoever. That strikes me as proof but unfortunately means that metallurgical sampling must be undertaken on individual coins. The results of these analyses in defining what is official and what is not  are in line with what I would term stylistic considerations.

This is a remarkable coincidence indeed ! Now I have two questions at this point:

- can we safely regard the observation "no silver" as valid criterium and include it in our list of distinction criteria for Barbarous imitation ? And is it safe to assume that it can serve as a single criterium, like adrianus suggests ("proof" is stated there !)

- could a criterium such as "style" be made objective in any way ? And if yes, what do we regard as wrong or Barbarous style ?

 
Lex

[gantois321]

Hi Lex and others :

Differences between the "muntstukken" and "Forumancient" experts' approach exist. While ForumAncient, e.g. the expert adrianus, regards style of portrait and reverse arts as a primary distinctive criterium, the "muntstukken" approach is based on more technical observations, specific aspects like size, lettering details and die tooling technique.

I think we always use a combination of the 2 approaches. Of course, the more a coin shows diiferent barbaric characteristics, the easier it is to definitly classifie it. The more a coin is like "official" more it becomes difficult to decide and be shure. And mistakes will always be made. So official coins, for instance Claudius II coins, will be wrongly attributed barbaric and vice versa.

The point of view of Adrianus :

As for 'proof' that irregular coins are irregualr, all the metallurgical analyses carried out (and we're looking at a few dozen here) on wolf and twins coinage show official coins to have a small silver content (c1-2%) whilst irregular coins have none whatsoever. That strikes me as proof but unfortunately means that metallurgical sampling must be undertaken on individual coins. The results of these analyses in defining what is official and what is not  are in line with what I would term stylistic considerations.

IF it is prooven that it is exact (but do studies exists?) that barbaric coins NEVER have silver in the alloy, it will be, of course, an objective criterium to classifie them.
But is it so? And do have official coins ALWAYS silver in the alloy?
And how to test it for a "simple" collectionner? We do not dispose of laboratories with the equipment to check that out. Anyway, if what Adrianus is pretending is exact, it will be the fruit of scientific/archeologic/numismatic studies. Studies who are always published. And I would be glad to know where we can find those studies. That will avoid endless discussions and changing of points of view.

PS : Sorrry for my English, I did not speak or write  it for a very long time

PS LEX : dit was mijn 1000ste bijdrage, en dan nog voor een zeer interessant onderwerp, mooi niet?

[adrianus]

Hello all,

Many points to answer. I shall deal with Lex's points first. And Gantois321 - please do not apologise about your English - it is far better than my Dutch!
 
1) SILVER. This is valid for copies of the fourth century. It is NOT valid for radiate imitations which do (strangely) appear to always have a silver content. This is all ongoing research for myself and Dr. Matthew Ponting a friend of mine who works at Liverpool. We have analysed approx 40 wolf and twins imitations (most of very good style and quite large size) and none had any silver (apart from as trace elements in the region of 0.1%). Official coins have ten to twenty times this amount (and many have been analysed - they always have a noticeable -if small - silver content).
I have a few offprints of Matt's first paper on some of this material - if anyone would like me to mail them a copy, please send me your mailing address via personal mail - first come first served!   
2) STYLE. I believe this can be objective. The one good thing (although it can make for boring coins about issues of the 260s - 4th century is that particular mints have a particular style (or a very small number of particular styles. Look at regualr issues of Lyons for example - there are only two reverse styles operating for wolf and twins, the first (which I call style A) in the first two issues (PLG and crescentPLG), and the second (style B) in the following issues. The last issue starPLG is a very slight variant of style B. Look at any Lyons wolf and twins coins in your collections to see what I mean - I will post some here soon. There are very few obverse styles either.
Since there are only two styles in operation at Lyons (and remember all official coins are also of large size and weight), it follows that any coins not having those styles must be imitations. Interestingly, Matthew and I were keen to analyse what I regarded as good size imitations of good (though wrong) style to prove they were imitations (and they had no silver ).
I agree with Lex that it might be a remarkable coincidence that my no silver/wrong style analsis works - I prefer to see it as proof that stylistic analysis works 

As for Gantois321's points, I agree we cannot have laboratories in our coin cabinets!! Much of our work is not published (but I can send offprints [or photocopies] of Matt's paper I mention above to anyone who is interested) but my paper on wolf and twins copies and 'Mint II' in particular is 17,000 words so far and getting near to being finished and I hope to publish it at some stage in the next 2 years or so.

In the meantime, to show Forum members what I mean, I am quite happy to put some of my imitative style groups up for discussion on this Forum over the next few months with my comments on why they are related to one another, in order to provoke discussion and hopefully convince the sceptics . Please let me know if you'd like this I do not want to 'barge in' as we say in England...

Regards,

Adrianus

[aurelianus]

@ Gantois,
there are several official coins (Treveri) where there is no silver in the official coins
@ adrianus

I have a few offprints of Matt's first paper on some of this material - if anyone would like me to mail them a copy, please send me your mailing address via personal mail

-
Is there any chance to put the text (or scan) on this forum, so we can copy and print it ourselves?
If that isn't possible, please sent the text via this forum PB, I print it myselves,
thank you very much, sorry for my rotten English.
Aurelianus

[batavier]

Hello Adrianus,
I think you will by no means "barge in" on this forum.
I am higly interested to see your imitative style groups on this Forum.
I'm als very interested in the researchtekst.
I hope it canbe placed on the forum for anyone to enjoy and study.

Batavier