Celtic (Gaulish) coins: identifying and classifying your collection
By Sébastien · · 6 min read
Gaulish coins often puzzle the collector used to Roman coinage: no emperor's portrait or readable legend, but a stylized, abstract, sometimes baffling Celtic art. Identifying them calls for a different reading grid. This article extends the guide cataloguing an ancient coin collection.
Tying the coin to a people
A Gaulish coin is not classified by emperor but by people (civitas). Each people has its own style and types: Aedui, Arverni, Sequani, Parisii, Remi... Geographic attribution is often the first step of identification, supported by the find spot when known.
Recognizing the main types
A few families structure Gaulish coinage:
- Staters and quarter-staters: gold coins, often initially inspired by the staters of Philip II of Macedon, then stylized.
- Silver coins and regional "drachms", notably in the south and west.
- Potins: cast coins (not struck) in a bronze alloy, typical of several peoples.
- Struck bronzes from the conquest period and after.
Reading the Celtic style
Celtic art breaks down and reassembles Greco-Roman models: a horse becomes an undulating creature, a profile is reduced to volutes, symbols (boar, wheel, S-shapes) scatter across the field. This visual vocabulary, once tamed, becomes the main criterion for recognizing a type and a people.
References: La Tour and Delestrée-Tache
Two corpora dominate the attribution of Gaulish coins:
- LT (Atlas de La Tour): the historical reference atlas, whose plate numbers still serve as a landmark.
- DT (Delestrée-Tache, Nouvel Atlas): the modern corpus most used today, with up-to-date numbering.
As with Roman coinage, noting the reference (LT or DT) in the file makes the attribution verifiable — the same logic as RIC, RPC references and OCRE on the Roman side.
Cataloguing a Gaulish collection
The record method stays the same: obverse/reverse photos, metal, weight, diameter, people, type, LT/DT reference, provenance. Classification by people replaces classification by emperor. See the pillar cataloguing an ancient coin collection and, for preservation, preserving your ancient coins.
In practice with AncientDesk
AncientDesk lets you classify by people and by type, with a reference field (LT, DT) and a full photo record — to keep a Gaulish collection as rigorously as a Roman one, offline. A Celtic piece to identify? Feel free to contact us.
Frequently asked questions
How do I identify a Gaulish coin with no legend?
By first tying it to a people (Aedui, Arverni, Parisii...) through its style and types, then comparing it to the La Tour (LT) and Delestrée-Tache (DT) corpora. The find spot, when known, helps a lot.
What is a Gaulish potin?
A potin is a cast coin (not struck) in a bronze alloy, typical of several Gaulish peoples. It is one of the great families of Celtic coinage, alongside gold staters.
Which references are used for Gaulish coins?
Mainly La Tour (LT), the historical atlas, and Delestrée-Tache (DT), the modern Nouvel Atlas most used today. Noting the reference in the file makes the attribution verifiable.
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