On 30th October 2015, I attended Sam Moorhead’s course on identification of 4th Century Roman nummi at the British Museum. Sam Moorhead is the Portable Antiquities Scheme’s (PAS) National Finds Adviser for Iron Age and Roman coins based at the Museum. I now have three such courses under my belt including radiate training and the broader course on identifying and recording Roman coins. I just need to attend the Early Augustan Coins course to complete the set!

As a long-term self-recorder with the PAS I am fascinated by how the accurate recording of Roman coin finds can bring history and the ancient landscape to life. However this depends on the accuracy and detail of identification, and after attending Sam’s courses I now realise how lazy I have been! His amazing expertise, enthusiasm and passion have boosted my confidence immensely and will certainly improve the quality of my records.

As before the audience was a varied bunch including detectorists, PAS volunteers, students and a couple of Thames ‘mudlarks’. No time for chatting though, with a detailed but highly accessible presentation (Nummification – The Glorious World of 4th Century Nummi) before lunch followed by hands-on coin identification in the afternoon.

Despite my schoolboy errors (not realising an R mintmark might be from Rome….) I found myself identifying mints with confidence and I finally lost my terror of the dreaded fat green Roman Imperial Coinage volumes to pin some coins down exactly.

In the past Sam has been tremendously generous with his time and expertise to help me identify and record my coins in the greatest possible detail. This has opened my eyes to the importance of Reece Period analysis which amongst other insights has pinpointed a possible Roman temple site.

One of my coin finds stands out. After many hours fruitlessly trying to identify what I thought was a Republican denarius I sought Sam’s advice: it is a very rare coin from the Civil Wars in Nero’s reign minted in Gaul and is of national importance – wow!