Polish treasure hunter discovered Roman coin of Marcus Aurelius Nigrinianus

Mr. Mariusz Ciepluch – Polish detectorist – made an amazing find in England. Let’s give the voice to the finder himself.

During one of the morning exploration tramps somewhere in the riverbed, my attention was drawn, one of the signals sounded cleaner than the others I had tracked that morning. When I located it, there was joy – a Roman coin, in quite good condition. I love the artifacts related to the Empire, I have some elementary knowledge about them, I have accumulated a lot of literature, but the attempt to identify this find was not completely successful, Only the help of my friend, a specialist in Roman coins – Marek Sokołowski helped to solve the mystery. The coin I found was: Marcus Aurelius Nigrinianus (died 284/285 CE) – son of the Roman emperor Carinus and Magnia Urbica, grandson of emperor Carus.

The Nigrinian went down in history mainly because he was the last member of the imperial family who had been deified after his death. And the coin I found is a posthumous coin with his image. When the descendant died, his father knocked out some silver bronze aurelius to commemorate his son.

These coins are really rare and very desirable for collectors, when I learned what I am dealing with, I started searching the PAS database to check the condition of my coin in relation to other coins of this type found in the UK. I was very surprised because although the description exists in the database, it was made based on the work of Peter Guest and Nick Wells, entitled “Iron Age and Roman coins of Wales”. And such a coin has never been added to the PAS base, I am very happy because it seems that I found a unique, half legendary in the world of collectors.

The coin was registered in the PAN database:

• Roman radiate of copper alloy of Divus Nigrinian (283-285 CE), probably son of Carinus, dated around 284-285 CE. CONSECRATIO reverse type depicting an eagle standing face down, left head The Mint of Rome.

Nigrinian coins are very rare in the UK, with one example recorded in the Gloucester treasure. This is the first verified example registered by the Polish Academy of Sciences.