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Author Topic: Marcus Antonius Legionary denarii  (Read 76500 times)

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Offline Jay GT4

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Re: Marcus Antonius Legionary denarii
« Reply #75 on: October 25, 2014, 06:13:02 pm »
I managed to find another LEG IIII today which makes two in my collection:

Gallery Link



Offline Andrew McCabe

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Re: Marcus Antonius Legionary denarii
« Reply #76 on: October 25, 2014, 10:41:30 pm »
Well done. Odd that only this type and LEG XVIIII were missing from Paphos yet IIII crops up from time to time but XVIIII is never seen.

Offline Andrew McCabe

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Pigeonaries - Marcus Antonius wrong style Legionary denarii
« Reply #77 on: March 30, 2015, 09:29:02 am »
There has been intermittent debate, and questions from time to time on the Fakes board, about certain wrong-style Legionary denarii that have been sold by well known dealers in recent years, thus that appear in hand as struck and ancient, and also wrong-style Legionaries that have been sold by more notorious eBay sellers in the same period, of very similar style, and that look probably cast.

For the record I attach in this and the next post a variety of such pieces that have been sold by well-known coin dealers. I call them "Pigeonaries"

I am not sure whether these are ancient and modern. They may be ancient imitations. Some, especially those sold by ebay sellers, may be modern and made in odd styles so as to somehow look Dacian or imitative (which is a great defence, "looks odd?? must be Dacian then"), and others, sold by larger auction houses, may be ancient. Part of my reasons is that I've seen some examples (not among those illustrated) that look distinctly worse in hand. Part of my reasons is that coins in such styles were never seen before about 2010 and were not included in the Phil Davis sale of Dacian imitations. I'm sure Phil would have found them if they had existed in older sources.

This belief of mine also extends to the other Imperatorial types recently offered, and specifically the Pompey Varro which have been sold in abundance by dealers the world over in the last few years, but once again were not to be seen before about 2010.

However, many well-respected experts disagree with me. So, these are not for the fakes reports. Furthermore, I have had a similar piece in my collection that I certainly thought genuinely ancient (though probably imitative). I just want to register my view here so as to make Forum members aware of this phenomenon, when they are considering buying supposed Dacian imitations of the Imperatorial periods or other types of the Imperatorial period in the wrong styles, such as the Pigeonaries here illustrated. Maybe they are all genuine, maybe they are all fake, maybe some are genuine and others are fake. I suspect the latter is true: of those illustrated in this thread, many may be ancient and some not.

Moderators: I would like this post to remain on the Antony Legionary Denarii stickie rather than moved to the Fakes board, given the lack of consensus, and that those experts who think these genuine are not Forum members, and as all they types I illustrate are Legionaries.

Offline Andrew McCabe

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Re: Pigeonaries - Marcus Antonius wrong style Legionary denarii
« Reply #78 on: March 30, 2015, 09:32:19 am »
Four more Pigeonaries: note that the last has obverse legend IIII VIR RC rather than III VIR RPC, as well as being in the wrong style, and the second last one has reverse legend IEG S rather than LEG VI, as well as being in the wrong style. Note that the second one below has surfaces that look cast, and others have odd surfaces. Of the eight which I illustrate, four are of relatively rare and sought after varieties.

Offline Jay GT4

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Re: Marcus Antonius Legionary denarii
« Reply #79 on: April 13, 2015, 08:27:53 pm »
Andrew I agree, these are "off" and the high proportion of scarcer types makes me suspicious. 

Offline swampaggie

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Re: Marcus Antonius Legionary denarii
« Reply #80 on: June 20, 2015, 07:49:46 pm »
If anyone should have an image of the elusive LEG XVIIII (19) could you please upload it and I'll also add it to the collage-picture.

While reading this excellent thread I noted that Andrew's request had gone unfulfilled.  ACS Search contains two examples of the LEG XVIIII denarius that were both sold via Fritz Rudolf Künker GmbH & Co. KG (Auction 111, Lot 6514 and Auction 124, Lot 8531).

http://www.acsearch.info/search.html?id=286080
http://www.acsearch.info/search.html?id=362035

Cheers,

Jeremy
Jeremy

Offline Andrew McCabe

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Re: Marcus Antonius Legionary denarii
« Reply #81 on: June 21, 2015, 03:23:06 am »
Thank you Jeremy. Same reverse die. I wonder is it a single die type.

I'm very doubtful about many of the LEG IIX and LEG PRI that have been marketed. Isn't it odd that they don't ever come in smoothly worn condition like these XVIIII examples but only somewhat sharp and thus prone to tooling. Also odd that the styles of both vary so much whereas one would expect them to be single-engraver issues if not single-die issues. And despite their supposed rarity, the examples we see are never from the same die. I'm convinced that most of the IIX and PRI we've seen are tooled fakes, but I don't know which if any are genuine. So I don't intend to own the types. Unless I stumble across a well worn mis described example at a low cost.

Offline Andrew McCabe

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Re: Marcus Antonius Legionary denarii
« Reply #82 on: June 23, 2015, 01:22:49 pm »
I've updated my collage of Antony Legionary Denarii, new picture below, with several coins upgraded and one new type XVIIII added on the prompting of Jeremy (swampaggie). The individual coins are relatively low resolution due to historic upload size limitations for a single image containing 37 coins, but it gives the picture.

The three aurei and LEG PRI are from BMCRR. LEG IIX and LEG XVIIII are from acsearch. LEG XXI and XV are Phil Davis'. The remaining 30 coins are, or were, in my collection.

Offline Andrew McCabe

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Re: Marcus Antonius Legionary denarii
« Reply #83 on: September 09, 2015, 06:47:55 am »
Here is an inventory of the LEG PRI fakes that have been discussed on the Legionary stickie thread:

Top coin in this post is the supposedly genuine (at least old) British Museum example. Below it a coin I believed fake
Discussion Topic 70907.msg505243#msg505243
Another presumed fake.
Discussion Topic 70907.msg581461#msg581461
Today's addition
Discussion Topic 103542.msg636749#msg636749

I illustrate the four pieces below. Note how they can never get the lettering to match the obverse style, whereas the BM piece does match

Top - genuine - BM
Next three - presumed fake.

Have I missed any? There is more or less the same story with LEG IIX. What nails the LEG IIX fake story is that one occurs in what I call the pigeonary style (Dacian imitation). That's so incredible and implausible (of the tens of thousands of legionary coins in Dacia, what on earth would cause them to copy that single-die rarity ... unless it were modern) that it tends to increase my feeling that the pigeonaries are all modern fakes. Including all those Pompey Varro types.

Offline carthago

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Re: Marcus Antonius Legionary denarii
« Reply #84 on: September 09, 2015, 12:59:08 pm »
I'm concerned about the widespread offering of these pigeonary types, especially highlighted by the seemingly universal acceptance of the Pompey Varro by sellers.  In my opinion, the Pompey's are almost certainly fake when you look at the first recorded coin of this reverse type (sold as a plated coin and definitely fake) in the CoinArchive sales record that quickly ushered all of these reverse "N" varieties to market.  I posted the coin here:

Discussion topic=102656.0;attach=260593;image

The problem as I see it is that these coins are being sold in vast numbers and the collective understanding of what is correct style for these issues as documented in over 100 years of published sales record will begin to be diluted.  These will be considered one of the acceptable style, either barbaric imitations or outright modern fakes, and we have legitimized a break in our authenticity defenses.  A lot of the Antony legionary denarii being offered these days don't look right and they're selling like hotcakes.

Offline carthago

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Re: Marcus Antonius Legionary denarii
« Reply #85 on: November 07, 2015, 09:40:40 am »
This LEG PRI is back up for sale in a European Auction, same seller as 2012.

 

Offline TenthGen

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Re: Marcus Antonius Legionary denarii
« Reply #86 on: May 29, 2016, 05:09:27 pm »
Hello everyone,

This thread is a spectacular source of information! I wanted to inquire if any of you were aware of additional hoard data beyond the Delos hoard as it relates to Antony Legionary Denarii. In particular I am interested in hoards where at least 10 Legionary Denarii were identified and where specific legion detail was obtained.

I have thus far gathered data from the Delos Hoard and a hoard from Scotland reported by MacDonald in 1934. I am very interested in the Shapwick hoard as well, but I haven't found specific info about which Legionary denarii were present, only that they were there in large number.

Once I get another hoard or two added in I'll post the tabulated results here in an attractive format.

Regards,

Offline TenthGen

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Re: Marcus Antonius Legionary denarii
« Reply #87 on: June 07, 2016, 11:11:51 pm »
In reference to the post above, I have aggregated data from 24 hoards out of ~110 examined for their Marc Antony Legionary Denarii frequency. To be included, a hoard needed to contain at least 10 total legionary denarii. This served to weed out extraneous individual coin finds. The majority of the hoards were investigated using the Coin Hoards of the Roman Republic database. A small number were obtained from primary literature (Delos, Shapwick, etc). In particular, I was able to get data on the Shapwick hoard by directly speaking with Dr. Abdy who was very helpful!

The data in aggregate is attached below (the first image in color for each hoard, the second without color for totals). You might want to click it to get a larger image. Remember that the attached images will only be visible if you are logged in.


There are a few things I would like to point out:

1) The frequency estimates from earlier in this thread are quite good.

2) The complete absence of LEG IIX could be due to a lack of a catalog number used to report them. Thus like the reversed imitative coins it could be lumped into a different or unidentified category. Alternatively, they aren't real at all.

3) LEG PRI is interesting - and a bit concerning. I encountered 4 instances of LEG PRI being named: Once as a placeholder for an obscured coin in the database, twice as a "Extraneous" find in a hoard that had <10 denarii, and once in a group of coins from Zara in Italy's entry in the CHRR database that used Crawford's own notes as a reference. I did not find any convincing evidence that PRI coins had ever been legitimately found in a hoard I surveyed, other than the Zara collection.

4) I can easily add or take away hoard groups from the figure below. It's hard for me to tell if what the CHRR calls a hoard is truly that vs a surveyed collection - especially when the articles are in a different language. This is only as good as the source data.

Hopefully this aggregation will be useful for anyone wanting an approximate frequency of Marc Antony Legionary Denarii. ;D

Offline Aldo

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Re: Marcus Antonius Legionary denarii
« Reply #88 on: February 21, 2017, 01:56:28 pm »
Hi All,

I know this thread is old but thought this was the best place to ask about this matter. Whilst browsing a particular auction house's current catalogue they have for sale a Legion XXXIII. They make an argument for the existence of legion numbers higher than the usual accepted count of XXIII.

Does anyone have any thoughts on this? Just wondering as I'm collecting the legions and am intrigued by the possibility of more to keep searching for.

Thanks!


Mark

 






Offline Jay GT4

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Re: Marcus Antonius Legionary denarii
« Reply #89 on: February 22, 2017, 03:28:14 pm »
That's a very helpful graph.  How did I miss it?  ???

Aldo, I believe that LEG XXXIII is a fake but I'd like to see a photo of the coin.  Could you post it without making reference to which auction house it is being sold at?

Offline Aldo

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Re: Marcus Antonius Legionary denarii
« Reply #90 on: February 22, 2017, 05:13:52 pm »
Jay

I sent you a PM with the link - but here's the pic. The more I look at it the less convinced I am about the authenticity despite the argument made for it. Be interested to hear your thoughts after reading the auction houses arguments.



Mark

Offline Jay GT4

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Re: Marcus Antonius Legionary denarii
« Reply #91 on: February 23, 2017, 07:27:37 pm »
There is some discussion about these so-called unknown legions on previous pages.  Most believe they are tooled numbers and I tend to agree.  This one just doesn't  seem right to me but I'd like to hear Andrew's take on it.  Maybe he knows where it came from.

Offline Jay GT4

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Re: Marcus Antonius Legionary denarii
« Reply #92 on: November 25, 2018, 06:40:08 pm »
Another LEG PRI has emerged


Offline TenthGen

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Re: Marcus Antonius Legionary denarii
« Reply #93 on: November 29, 2018, 02:51:53 am »
What bothers me about LEG PRI is that I've never seen a worn one. These Antony Legionary denarii circulated for such a long time, and it isn't difficult in the slightest to find worn, ambiguous, or off center examples of the other types. What are the odds that every example of a coin as rare as LEG PRI turns out to be pristine, unworn, and well centered? Equally concerning is that I cannot recall a single example of LEG PRI being found in a large, academically documented hoard (It's occasionally listed in tiny finds or as a placeholder).

I'm not the caliber of authenticator that many of you are, but I wouldn't be surprised in the slightest if LEG PRI coins never really existed. I'd love to be wrong though.

Offline Jay GT4

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Re: Marcus Antonius Legionary denarii
« Reply #94 on: April 21, 2019, 12:32:23 am »
Two more LEG PRi for discussion


Offline cicerokid

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Re: Marcus Antonius Legionary denarii
« Reply #95 on: April 28, 2019, 08:28:28 am »
The last two NOT obverse or reverse die matches I believe. What do you think?

John
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Offline TenthGen

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Re: Marcus Antonius Legionary denarii
« Reply #96 on: May 01, 2019, 03:04:50 am »
Well, the second one in Jay's most recent post is the same coin from his post in November. But yes, these definitely represent a variety of dies. The question is if any of them are real. It's pretty unusual to see die matches in Antony's Legionaries...in fact I'm not sure if I've noticed any in the ~5 years I've been collecting them except in the case of a few fakes here and there.

It still just bugs me that there aren't any low grade PRIs. It is absolutely the rarest Antony Legionary that might be real excluding errors. But as far as I know 1) they've never turned up in large well documented hoardsa, 2) There's never rough example where you have to closely examine them to see if it's PRI vs XXI vs XVI, and 3) It would be the only legionary denarii type to use alphabetical text in the numerical field. The rest place the non-numerical text around the edges. Sure, PRI could just stand for "I" or first, but why? None of the other Antony coins use an ordinal Latin form of a number. To really convince me, we'd need either well documented in situ finds or at least some examples of LEG PRI that don't look like museum display pieces every time. If I'm wrong about any of this, please correct me.  ;D

a: As I stated in my post with graphs a few years back in this thread, I've never found a LEG PRI or its Crawford number recorded as part of an actual documented hoard of more than 10 coins using the CHRR database. The Crawford number showed up once as a placeholder and twice in small hoards of less than 10 coins as an extraneous coin (without other legionaries I believe). The only example that might be legitimate was that Crawford himself apparently recorded one in a museum collection in Italy. But I'm just operating off what the database listed (in 2015).


Offline Tacitus

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Re: Marcus Antonius Legionary denarii
« Reply #97 on: October 26, 2019, 01:33:24 pm »

Offline labienus

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Re: Marcus Antonius Legionary denarii
« Reply #98 on: December 07, 2019, 11:30:45 am »
If this is supposed to be an eagle, there was some sexual relationship with a pigeon at some stage !!!!!!!
Currently for sale on Ebeurk.


Offline TenthGen

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Re: Marcus Antonius Legionary denarii
« Reply #99 on: January 21, 2020, 01:20:29 am »
I was recently at a coin show and met a dealer there who was super knowledgeable about Antony Legionaries. He and I chatted for a little while and he mentioned meeting someone previously who was interested in doing a metallurgic analysis of legionaries to determine the origin of the silver - were they really made with Cleopatra's own silver reserves from Egyptian territorial sources, were they made with local silver in Asia Minor or Greece, or does the silver have a non-specific origin implying they came from Roman sources throughout the Empire.

1) Does anyone know of this study having been done before?

2) If that person happens to read this thread, I'd be happy to supply some heavily worn (obscured legion #) examples for analysis. I'd also be happy to help with that project more generally. I know very little about how metallurgic analysis is conducted other than that it would require a cross-section analysis using XRF. But I can imagine a pretty sweet 3D XYZ plot of three major contaminant metals that would help us group the coins. Couple that with some % silver purity analysis and we could have some great data. The data would be pretty resilient against fake coins, too, since any of them made with modern silver or silver from a different source would stick out like a sore thumb. We'd definitely need some silver coins known to come from the queried locations for comparison though. There may even be some other specific marker in that silver that we could look for in the legionary coins.


 

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