1 Denarius - Imitating Marcus Aurelius, 161-180, or Septimius Severus, 193-211

Barbarous imitations of Roman denarii proliferated across the Germanic frontier during the third century, a period when official Roman silver was being debased so aggressively that the distinction between an imperial coin and a tribal copy sometimes mattered less than its silver content. These pieces were struck by communities outside the limes who had absorbed enough Roman metalworking knowledge to produce credible — if stylistically degraded — coinage, likely for use in cross-border trade or mercenary payment.

The attribution range spanning both Marcus Aurelius and Septimius Severus prototypes reflects a common problem with this material: Germanic die-cutters frequently copied from worn or mixed exemplars, collapsing decades of imperial portraiture into a single muddled type.