roman coin bronze 20mm ruler reverse? grade?

Hello,


It's Aurelianus.
Obv. : IMP AVRELIANVS AVG
Rev. : ORIENS AVG

Not sure about the mintmark XX I... ?

Citeer: "Choucas"​Hello,
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​
​It's Aurelianus.
​Obv. : IMP AVRELIANVS AVG
​Rev. : ORIENS AVG
​
​Not sure about the mintmark XX I... ?

​Probably just XXI. As a part of his coinage reform Aurelian introduced the new antoninianus standard, according to which 20 of his antoniniani contained the same amount of silver as one old denarius (sounds horrible, but that was actually an improvement compared to previous emperors and usurpers, the 3d century was really not a good time for the Roman Empire). To signify that the coin complied with this standard, either XXI (in Latin mints) or KA (in Greek mints) was added (usually in exergue). The emperor was trying to recall all the old "bad" coins and these marks were supposed to help with this enterprise.

Indeed, I know that, but there is often a letter (mintmark) after the XXI. For instance XXIS, XXIT, XXIP, XXIR,..


The XX is clear on the pics, but there could be one or two letters in the red circle, I'm not sure.

Sorry, just wanted to add this fascinating bit of trivia, maybe somebody does not know. Well, to be absolutely sure one has to look through all the Aurelian's ORIENS AVG antoniniani types with XXI. And even a cursory look at WildWinds (whose list is probably by no means complete) shows how numerous they are, quite a tedious task.

Citeer: "yuretzius"​Sorry, just wanted to add this fascinating bit of trivia, maybe somebody does not know. Well, to be absolutely sure one has to look through all the Aurelian's ORIENS AVG antoniniani types with XXI. And even a cursory look at WildWinds (whose list is probably by no means complete) shows how numerous they are, quite a tedious task.

​No need to be sorry, your message was useful and very well explained!