They are of interest to games scholars because the speculation often includes the suggestion these objects may have had a ludic function, and were used as game counters. Even before this particular spate of media interest, these curious tokens have generated confusion, speculation and prurience – often simultaneously. When the token was discovered to have an erotic image on one side and a Roman numeral on the other, and was identified in a Museum of London press release as a rare Roman “brothel token”, the press reported on the story in the expected manner, for example: “A Roman coin that was probably used by soldiers to pay for sex in brothels has been discovered on the banks of the River Thames” (Daily Telegraph, ) and “Bronze discs depicting sex acts, like the one discovered in London, were used to hire prostitutes – and directly led to the birth of pornography during the Renaissance” (The Guardian, ). In 2010 a Roman token was discovered in the mud of the Thames near Putney Bridge in London. The question of the so-called imitations of the tetradrachms of the Macedonian regions has been touched upon, as well.
The coins themselves, which have so far been called imitations, the author has divided into three groups: the first and the second ones he refers to as ‘bad-style’ coins, whereas the third one he calls ‘real’ imitations. The images are stylized and they diverge from the prototype.
These are the rough and almost completely barbarous imitations, on which the legends are simply forged by marks. At the same time, the author has given his own definition regarding which tetradrachms of the “Dionysios Soter” type are imitations. The author has divided the coinage in terms of names and types of Thasians present on the coins in three main groups: original – up until approximately the end of the 2nd century BC of a ‘Thasos type’ under the control of the Roman administration in Macedonia in the period up until ca. The methodology includes the analysis of spatial distribution the examination of the internal chronology and dynamics of the coinage a ‘die-study’. The author of this article has analyzed a number of large coin hoards, which he has already sorted and published. A number of authors have supported the hypothesis that the coins in question are eastern Celtic imitations. The aim of this article is to discuss a very important topic of interest and to define the character of an immense group of coins, namely - the group of the tetradrachms, which, according to the author, are called the tetradrachms of the island of Thasos, and the ‘Thasos type’ tetradrachms of ‘bad-style’.