I got this coin from Blackhawk, and neither of us know for sure what it is. I was wondering if anyone here could lend a hand identifying it? The details are a bit rough, but it looks like a male head facing right, and on the reverse a person placing a hand over a servant/slave/person being blessed. I am not 100% sure, so any help would be appreciated!

Hard for me to tell given the condition but it could be of the type Emperor dragging captive - see Esty

It does look pretty close to that. When they made dies back then, how close were they to each other in size of engraving and style? The one you linked above looks pretty darn close, but not exact. I'm curious is the dies used for this one were just made differently? Thanks for the info though!

This is indeed an emperor dragging captive reverse. Your coin is from Valens and the obverse legend reads DN VALEN-S PF AVG (or would if it was legible). The reverse is GLORIA RO-MANORVM [The glory of the Romans] emperor advancing right, holding labarum and dragging captive.

Dies were made by hand and engraved by different people, so no two were alike and might even vary greatly. Below is the link to Wildwinds page for Valens for comparison.

http://www.wildwinds.com/coins/ric/valens/i.html

Thanks for the help guys, I've updated my omnicoin with info from the website.

You copied and pasted too much of the description into your omnicoin entry. You should not have entered this part "RIC 7b" & ".SMAQS in ex. Cohen 12". The exergue of your coin (where the mintmark would be) is off the flan or not visible, so for this coin you can't be certain where it is from (especially since there are no field marks to assist). The SMAQS means a specific mint-- sacred money from the mint of Aquileia, second officina. RIC 7B means the book Roman Imperial Coinage volume IX coin 7B and it is mint specific. Cohen 12 is the reference book and number for a coin from Aquileia .

Ah, thanks. I think it's fixed now. I know basically nothing about ancient coins....at least before the 12th century A.D. anyway. Glad to see there are people who know this stuff, helps us novices out a lot.