Coin comparison question

Qwertyuiopgsggs

I was trying to ID my coin and came up to this online, could it be the same coin? The emperor bust is similar and you can see “SAV” on front of the emperor’s face.
The back is in worse condition but there is a standing figure.
What do you guys think?

Sapyx

Unfortunately, the letters "SAV" appear on the obverses of most ancient coins, all in about that same place, because most emperor's names end in "S", and the word after their name is often "AVG". So it doesn't really help at all in narrowing down the ID.

A sesterius is also quite a large coin; yours is probably the smaller denarius/late Roman bronze size.

Qwertyuiopgsggs

@Sapyx Thats unfortunate, do you have any idea what emperor it could be on the front?

Sapyx

Not really; I can't even tell if the portrait is supposed to have a beard or not (which is commonly the difference between coins from the 200s and coins from the 300s). Portraits of this period were not photo-realistic like for earlier Imperial coins; all the emperors tended to look very much alike. It looks like he's wearing a pearled diadem rather than a wreath of leaves, which would put it in the 300s, but beyond that I'm not getting much certainty.

I'm wanting to say "Arcadius", based purely on there seems to be a letter "A" about where I'd expect, and the style isn't incompatible witht he early 400s, but the lettering is so worn, I'd have doubts on interpreting any letters with confidence, except for the "AV". There also seems to be a letter "T" shape in the field on the reverse to the left of the standing figure, which might be a remnant of a chi-ro symbol. So, something like this coin on Wildwinds.

tcollects

@Sapyx said:
Not really; I can't even tell if the portrait is supposed to have a beard or not (which is commonly the difference between coins from the 200s and coins from the 300s). Portraits of this period were not photo-realistic like for earlier Imperial coins; all the emperors tended to look very much alike. It looks like he's wearing a pearled diadem rather than a wreath of leaves, which would put it in the 300s, but beyond that I'm not getting much certainty.

I'm wanting to say "Arcadius", based purely on there seems to be a letter "A" about where I'd expect, and the style isn't incompatible witht he early 400s, but the lettering is so worn, I'd have doubts on interpreting any letters with confidence, except for the "AV". There also seems to be a letter "T" shape in the field on the reverse to the left of the standing figure, which might be a remnant of a chi-ro symbol. So, something like this coin on Wildwinds.

I'm always impressed by your identification abilities

John Conduitt

It looks to me like they're wearing a diadem, which puts it in the 350-420 bracket. That includes Arcadius, but also the likes of Honorius and Theodosius II.

Qwertyuiopgsggs

@sapyx
You are a MONSTER at ancient coins, your example on wild winds does look the same, the front is very similar and the silhouette identical on the reverse thank you so much

Qwertyuiopgsggs

@sapyx
And which emperor is that coin in wild winds exactly?

John Conduitt

It's Arcadius http://www.wildwinds.com/coins/ric/arcadius/i.html

Note there are other similar coins, even Arcadius SALVS REIPVBLICAE with a Chi-rho, e.g. from Constantinople http://www.wildwinds.com/coins/ric/arcadius/_constantinople_RIC_086c_B.jpg

Qwertyuiopgsggs

@JohnConduitt sweet thats awesome, wicked cool name and Im very glad that it was identifiable. Thanks for your and Sapyx’s help