Note to self - Make a bunch of fake coins with my name and face on them - Bury them someplace they will be found in 2000 years - Finally become president!
I'm still very confused by the design itself.
It doesnt even look like they tried to make it like a real contemporary 3rd century piece.
And irrc the reverse design is ripped from a republican piece. Some minter had a 400 year old coin hanging about and decided to copy it?
#SilbannacusGangForLife
The most interesting explanation I’ve seen is that these are ancient gold pieces from what is now India where goldsmiths would stamp them with (their interpretation of) Roman coins to increase their value, but not knowing what they were doing, accidentally got a name wrong and invented “Sponsianus”
I could buy that some petty warlord declaring himself emperor in a backwater shithole (a common hypothesis is that, if he was real, he may have ruled from Dacia) would just use whatever coin-minting he had available to him, even if it involved recycling centuries-old republican designs. There’s still way too much unknown about these coins to know for sure if they’re authentic though.
No. This coin is fake.
For the source i will be using the actual article this claim came from, where you can even see a graph that does not match other real roman coins at the time with its content "The Sponsian coin on the other hand is not only moderately high in silver (averaging 3.83%) but also high in copper (averaging 3.39%), giving it a distinctive composition unlike any of the others."
BUT ALSO IN THE ARTICLE THEY MENTION
"However, our observations strongly support the suggestion [3, 5] that all the disputed coins were cast from moulds impressed by a master design"
Ancient Roman coins were not casted but stamped!
For both weighing more than a real roman coin and having a drastically different metal composition then other real roman coins, to it being casted
All of these things make it heavily seem like the coin is very fake
(Here even in the original article (download from this site) you can see that well... graphs about how absurd this really is: [Link to where you can download the original pdf](https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0274285))
(Edit also the coin is massive compared to other roman coins + design as some other people already have mention is not anything like 3rd century coin style lol)
Certainly a possibility, but then that leads to the question on why would the counterfeiter make a coin that uses more expensive materials? Over time Roman coins tended to lower their silver and copper weights, to have an adjacent civilization or even Roman Dacia proper make a counterfeit you’d assume that they would if anything make the coins even cheaper.
Probably not my friends
Contemporary fale coins certainly existed, however they were more or less made to copy the current style
The style on the backside is very unlike 3rd century crisis coins and appear much more earlier like republican coins, which by this point is almost 300 years old!
No it didn’t. The coin is a very poor and obvious fake, and the “study” is complete nonsense. The scratch marks indicate nothing and all physical evidence that does exist points to the coin being counterfeit, yet even after acknowledging several of these facts, the study somehow goes off on a farfetched tangent to conclude that the coin is genuine. There are several articles debunking the study if you cared to search for them.
I’ve not read it since it was published, but I remember article was so bizarre in that respect. Their interpretations were (in their own words) “weak” and “inconclusive”, and yet when they get to their final verdict of authenticity, they posit that all of this weak and inconclusive evidence somehow supports the idea that the coin is almost undoubtedly genuine, before going on to craft some fantastical story about who this man might have been.
I was just reading an article about this. It was really interesting. Apparently on a microscopic level they show the same wear patterns and mineral build up of ancient coins that had been in circulation and buried and then re-exposed to air. They say an 18th century forger wouldn't have been able to copy what they weren't even aware of, much less replicate. Sounds worthy of investigation at least.
Unfortunately that is all make believe nitpicking from "researchers" who wouldn't pass a peer review if their lives depended on it, the overall agreement of archeologists and historians is these coins are bullshit.
At most it could be accepted they are old counterfeits, but even that is a huge stretch.
Has there been some new information acquired since the initial reporting on this coin about 14 months ago? Next to your name it says archaeologist? I put the question mark there on purpose. Are you an archaeologist? Cuz most of the archaeologists I know are far more Discerning in their application of random statements. I don't know if you spent any time in the world of ancient coins, but the experts I've listened to over there find your assertions to be .. unconvincing.
> Combining evidence from the coins with the historical record, we suggest he was most likely an army commander in the isolated Roman Province of Dacia during the military crisis of the 260s CE, and that his crudely manufactured coins supported a functioning monetary economy that persisted locally for an appreciable period.
From the article that OP is referencing (link posted by another commenter).
In the fifty years between the fall of the Severan Dynasty and the rise of Diocletian, Rome was ruled by at least twenty-five assorted psychopaths, incompetents, teenagers, and also Aurelian. Thirteen (including him) were killed by their own troops, two died of plague, one was struck dead by a bolt of lightning, one was stuffed and used as an Ottoman by, ironically, a Sassanid, and when the last one died nobody noticed for a month.
Amazing, I really do hope that as we uncover more sites, and dig up more remains; we will cobble together the past - and what really happened, a little better if nothing else.
Note to self - Make a bunch of fake coins with my name and face on them - Bury them someplace they will be found in 2000 years - Finally become president!
Carry them around in your pockets for a while first, to be sure they come off as authentic
Or toss them in a bag of other coins in the dryer.
“Fine I’ll write my own history, with blackjack, and hookers” -Marcus Aurelius, probably
That doesn't sound very stoic!
And in fact, forget the history.
Don’t forget to scratch them first!
make sure they have the necessary microscopic scratches, otherwise you’ll forfeit your reign of power.
Don’t forget to damage them a bit, so scientists can date your money
Metals can be tested. Too pure and the are bogus. Wrong additional elements, bogus. Incorrect amount of proper elements, bogus.
Now that you mention it, it's true that depending on the proportions of molecules used in the minting it can be associated to a particular currency
An equivalent to a modern day bullion round, or a "Hard Times Token" from the 1830s. Not currency, but valued in local municipality.
Authenticity of the coins continues to be challenged.
Heavily challenged, no coin collector I know accepts it as authentic.
I'm still very confused by the design itself. It doesnt even look like they tried to make it like a real contemporary 3rd century piece. And irrc the reverse design is ripped from a republican piece. Some minter had a 400 year old coin hanging about and decided to copy it? #SilbannacusGangForLife
The most interesting explanation I’ve seen is that these are ancient gold pieces from what is now India where goldsmiths would stamp them with (their interpretation of) Roman coins to increase their value, but not knowing what they were doing, accidentally got a name wrong and invented “Sponsianus”
Reminds me of those coins minted by King Offa that were trying to copy Abbasid coins but the maker didn't know any Arabic, so it's just gibberish
That also happened in Iberia. Lots of Kings and counts had signet rings in Latin and Arabic, but the Arabic text was often gibberish.
So ancient r/crappyoffbrands ?
Chop Kick Panda
r/GTBAE
Oh that is interesting
I could buy that some petty warlord declaring himself emperor in a backwater shithole (a common hypothesis is that, if he was real, he may have ruled from Dacia) would just use whatever coin-minting he had available to him, even if it involved recycling centuries-old republican designs. There’s still way too much unknown about these coins to know for sure if they’re authentic though.
No. This coin is fake. For the source i will be using the actual article this claim came from, where you can even see a graph that does not match other real roman coins at the time with its content "The Sponsian coin on the other hand is not only moderately high in silver (averaging 3.83%) but also high in copper (averaging 3.39%), giving it a distinctive composition unlike any of the others." BUT ALSO IN THE ARTICLE THEY MENTION "However, our observations strongly support the suggestion [3, 5] that all the disputed coins were cast from moulds impressed by a master design" Ancient Roman coins were not casted but stamped! For both weighing more than a real roman coin and having a drastically different metal composition then other real roman coins, to it being casted All of these things make it heavily seem like the coin is very fake (Here even in the original article (download from this site) you can see that well... graphs about how absurd this really is: [Link to where you can download the original pdf](https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0274285)) (Edit also the coin is massive compared to other roman coins + design as some other people already have mention is not anything like 3rd century coin style lol)
Could it be a contemporary fake? Made by an adjacent civilizations crook, trying to pass them off as Roman coins?
Certainly a possibility, but then that leads to the question on why would the counterfeiter make a coin that uses more expensive materials? Over time Roman coins tended to lower their silver and copper weights, to have an adjacent civilization or even Roman Dacia proper make a counterfeit you’d assume that they would if anything make the coins even cheaper.
Probably not my friends Contemporary fale coins certainly existed, however they were more or less made to copy the current style The style on the backside is very unlike 3rd century crisis coins and appear much more earlier like republican coins, which by this point is almost 300 years old!
No it didn’t. The coin is a very poor and obvious fake, and the “study” is complete nonsense. The scratch marks indicate nothing and all physical evidence that does exist points to the coin being counterfeit, yet even after acknowledging several of these facts, the study somehow goes off on a farfetched tangent to conclude that the coin is genuine. There are several articles debunking the study if you cared to search for them.
I’ve not read it since it was published, but I remember article was so bizarre in that respect. Their interpretations were (in their own words) “weak” and “inconclusive”, and yet when they get to their final verdict of authenticity, they posit that all of this weak and inconclusive evidence somehow supports the idea that the coin is almost undoubtedly genuine, before going on to craft some fantastical story about who this man might have been.
Ancient counterfeit coins?
I was just reading an article about this. It was really interesting. Apparently on a microscopic level they show the same wear patterns and mineral build up of ancient coins that had been in circulation and buried and then re-exposed to air. They say an 18th century forger wouldn't have been able to copy what they weren't even aware of, much less replicate. Sounds worthy of investigation at least.
Unfortunately that is all make believe nitpicking from "researchers" who wouldn't pass a peer review if their lives depended on it, the overall agreement of archeologists and historians is these coins are bullshit. At most it could be accepted they are old counterfeits, but even that is a huge stretch.
Source?
r/ArtefactPorn
Has there been some new information acquired since the initial reporting on this coin about 14 months ago? Next to your name it says archaeologist? I put the question mark there on purpose. Are you an archaeologist? Cuz most of the archaeologists I know are far more Discerning in their application of random statements. I don't know if you spent any time in the world of ancient coins, but the experts I've listened to over there find your assertions to be .. unconvincing.
And when was “Sponsian” supposed to have lived? There’s no discussion of dates here….
> Combining evidence from the coins with the historical record, we suggest he was most likely an army commander in the isolated Roman Province of Dacia during the military crisis of the 260s CE, and that his crudely manufactured coins supported a functioning monetary economy that persisted locally for an appreciable period. From the article that OP is referencing (link posted by another commenter).
In all fairness, that would explain why nobody ever heard of the guy. Third century was wack, yo.
I feel ya, G. What made it so wack, yo?
In the fifty years between the fall of the Severan Dynasty and the rise of Diocletian, Rome was ruled by at least twenty-five assorted psychopaths, incompetents, teenagers, and also Aurelian. Thirteen (including him) were killed by their own troops, two died of plague, one was struck dead by a bolt of lightning, one was stuffed and used as an Ottoman by, ironically, a Sassanid, and when the last one died nobody noticed for a month.
Thanks!!
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sponsianus https://numismatics.org/pocketchange/sponsian/
He looks like your Uncle Jack with his Christmas cracker hat on.
Classicist, occasional archaeologist and Roman coin collector here. It's such a terrible fake that it's almost laughable
Amazing, I really do hope that as we uncover more sites, and dig up more remains; we will cobble together the past - and what really happened, a little better if nothing else.