Gasoline Alley by Jim Scancarelli for July 07, 2016

I’ve been waiting for someone else to give the answer to how old this coin is, but no one has said anything yet, so I guess it’s my turn.Coins do not have the initials B.C. or A.D. on the because B.C means Before Christ and A.D. are after the Dedication of Christ. I know A.D. in Anno D???? but I just can’t think of the Latin right now and am no Latin expert. Therefore, this old coin is a counterfeit no older than a few hundred years at the most.

The years “A.D.” didn’t start being used until the 6th century. Someone tried to calculate the year Christ was born, and then retroactively renumbered years from the Birth of Chrise as “Anno Domini” (Year of our Lord) years.

Now that is funny

Y’alls assessment of the date on the coin is correct. The Romans could not possibly have dated their coins with an A.D. date. Besides that, they didn’t use the Arabic numbers, like 64. They used Roman numerals, like LXIV.

Not only that, but, Roman dates were figured from the founding of the Roman Empire..\\//_

So did I, as well as Frank Nelson’s voice throughout. But then, we’re supposed to hear Frank Nelson’s “oooh!” right from the beginning.

Most Roman Empire coins had a bust of the emperor on the obverse. coins were dated by knowing when the emperor ruled. Many roman Republic coins were minted by moneyers(sp). They stuck their name on the coin so you need to know when the moneyer was doing his thing.

dkram: more likely they would have identified it as the tenth year of Nero’s reign. The “ab urbe condita” system of dating was relatively uncommon.

In any case, coins from Nero’s reign do not have dates of any kind on them.

Jim packs more artistry into the background of panel 1 than some strips exhibit in a month.

Interesting, a coin with A.D. on it, now that’s something new.

I think there was a “Slylock Fox” strip for children that pointed out that arabic numbers and the letters AD on a coin make it an obvious fake. This strip won’t say so, though.

So Did I. WOW!