OCRE (Online Coins of the Roman Empire) is a joint project of the American Numismatic Society (ANS) and the Institute for theStudy of the Ancient World at New York University. OCRE launched in July 2012 with the aim of creating a digital corpus of Roman imperial coins that could replace the old volumes of the RIC (Roman Imperial Coinage).
At the time of its launch, the catalog only included the coins minted from Augustus to Hadrian. At the end of 2012, it had already incorporated those minted until the reign of Antoninus Pius. Now, at the end of 2016, the catalog is complete and encompasses more than 500 years of Roman monetary history between Augustus and Zeno (31 BC - 491 AD).
The catalog offers a complete record of each issue. In many cases, it also includes images from coins in some of the most important numismatic collections in the world, such as those of the American Numismatic Society, the British Museum or the Münzkabinett in Berlin, among many others. More images will be incorporated in the future until all coin types are illustrated.
The great advantage of OCRE over the RIC volumes is that it allows users to search using a wide variety of criteria, such as issuing authority, mint, obverse and reverse legend, type, metal, denomination, place of discovery, etc.
One of the most useful features of OCRE is its mapstool, which allows you to locate coins from the mint in which they are minted, see the mints active in the reign of each emperor and much more. It also includes information on the place of discovery of some coins.
In short, OCRE is an indispensable assistant for both researchers and collectors of Roman imperial coinage.
