Crawford 042/2, ROMAN REPUBLIC, Overstruck "Anonymous" Corn Ear AE Quadrans

Rome, The Republic.
Corn Ear Series (No Corn Ear), 214-212 BCE.
AE Quadrans (16.76g; 29mm).

Obv: Head of Hercules right in boarskin; three pellets (mark of value = 3 unciae) behind.

Rev: Bull leaping over snake; three pellets (mark of value) above; ROMA below.

Reference: Crawford 42/2var (no corn ear): See Russo, Essays Hersh (1998) p. 141.

Provenance: ex Agora Auction 70 (21 Nov 2017) Lot 194; ex RBW Collection duplicate (not in prior sales); ex P. Vecchi Auction 6 (14 Sep 1981) Lot 245.

In "Roman Republican Coinage", Michael Crawford recognized many silver “symbol” Republican series for which there were parallel “anonymous” types omitting the symbols. This coin is an anonymous version (missing symbol) of the Corn Ear Quadrans of the Crawford 42 series, produced in Sicily. It is identical in style to the Sicilian Corn Ear coins and only misses the symbol. Roberto Russo wrote about these anonymous coins in his article “Unpublished Roman Republican Bronze Coins” (Essays Hersh, 1998), where he notes that the parallel issue of anonymous silver coins to series with symbols applies equally to the bronze coins. Andrew McCabe takes this approach much further in his article “The Anonymous Struck Bronze Coinage of the Roman Republic” (Essays Russo, 2013) in which he links many of the anonymous Republican bronzes to symbol series based on precise style considerations. The takeaway from all this is that for many of the Roman Republican symbol series of the late Second Punic War and early 2nd Century BCE, there are parallel anonymous series identifiable by style. The rationale for these parallel issues is unclear, though possibly related to (a) governmental approvals for the issue or (b) mint control of the precious metal source from which the issue was struck or (c) workshop identification.

This particular example is overstruck, showing particular evidence of the under-type on the reverse. Based on that evidence and weight of the coin, I’ve concluded the under-type a Hieron II AE Obol imitative of Ptolemy II. The edge of the reverse shows the hairline of Zeus as depicted on this Hieron II issue.