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Offline Andrew McCabe

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Roman Republican coins – two years of photo updates
« on: July 05, 2015, 08:18:45 am »
This week I finally caught up with photographing my own coin collection, overcoming a backlog dating to mid 2013. The general updates can be seen by looking back through my Flickr pages: new coins extend back for 15 pages and include some 250 coins:

https://www.flickr.com/photos_user.gne?path=ahala_rome&nsid=&page=&details=1

and the complete collection, including inserts from other wonderful sources, can be seen in the 20 albums here, set up according to Crawford arrangement:

https://www.flickr.com/photos/ahala_rome/collections/72157651148771015/

I wanted to highlight some specific coins, types rarely seen, or rarely seen nice:

Cr.26/2 Apollo Horse drachm, the rarest of all the drachm or didrachm types in early Roman coinage, with none auctioned between the 1977 Nicolas sale and the 2011 RBW sale of the same Nicolas coin.
Cr.28/3 an exceptional late-style quadrigatus; this style just about never comes nice and is often debased:
Cr.36/1 aes grave as with prow left, much rarer than the usual prow right as



Cr.41/3a aes grave tressis or three asses (part of), the largest genuine aes grave denomination apart from the decussis, this type missing from RBW
Cr.45/1 rare, unpublished and so far unique example of the very first incuse denarius issue. Amazing obverse, this type missing from RBW
Cr.45/2 an FDC example of the quinarius of the same series



Cr.95/1 VB victoriatus, wonderful style with perfect surfaces, as struck, with some evidence of over or double strike
Cr.95/2 VB half victoriatus, one of the rarest silver denominations in Roman coinage
Cr.97/11 quincunx from Luceria with Apollo and Dioscuri type, an extremely rare bronze denomination, this type missing from RBW [pic below this post]



Cr.98A/5 L-T triens, Mercury-head [sic] quadrans with the extremely rare LT mintmark, very few known, this type missing from RBW [pic below post]
Cr.133/2b Baebia denarius ex-Haeberlin collection Cahn-Hess July 1933 plate coin
Cr.149/1a Ulysses walking on an as of L.Mamilius, a reasonable example of an extremely rare type:



Cr.187/1 an unusually clear murex shell on a lovely denarius of Furius Purpureo, a punning name
Cr.205/2 female head prowstem ornament on an as of Publius Cornelius Sulla
Cr.250/1 denarius of Marcus Aburius Geminus, an exceptional example of a type commonly found fresh-struck and sharp but rarely found as well struck and complete



Cr.282/4 Lucius Pomponius Narbo type denarius, serrated on an unusually large and well-centred flan
Cr.285/5a Hercules and his attributes: club, bow and arrow on a very rare non-prow bronze of Quintus Curtius, Cnaeus Domitius and Marcus Junius Sila, this type missing from RBW
Cr.294/1 Titus Didia denarius with gladiatorial scene, rarely as nice:



Cr.310/1 Anguipede giant, the sun, the moon and Jupiter in quadriga on a rare and complex type of Cnaeus Cornelius Sisena
Cr.321/1 fine style denarius of Lucius Cassius Caeican
Cr.333/1 quinarius of Caius Egnatuleia with types as large as a denarius on wide (20mm) very thin flan rather like an English penny. Clearly an experiment that didn’t work as they reverted to the usual thick Roman flans in the same issue



Cr.342/1 and Cr.342/2 pair of Pan-Silenus Caius Vibius Pansa denarii with Pan as obverse on one and Silenus on the other, rarely found as nice:
Cr.344/1a abduction of the Sabine ladies, unusually fine style and detailed, one can see their surprised facial expressions



This is part A. Part B to follow …
Andrew

Offline Andrew McCabe

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Re: Roman Republican coins – two years of photo updates
« Reply #1 on: July 05, 2015, 12:48:53 pm »
More new additions to my collection here:

Cr.350A/3a Vergilia, Gargilia and Ogulnia as with a tiny central Italian Hercules eagle small bronze stamped on top. Very unusual. Is this a counterstamp or an overstrike?
Cr.390/2 Lucius Lucertius Trio denarius, as-struck with a detailed and charming boy dolphin rider. This coin from NFA27 which was Roberto Russo’s collection
Cr.398/1 Quintus Pomponius Rufus, centered and perfectly struck on a very broad flan, and from a tiny eight-die issue this being reverse III with prawn



Cr.388/1 Satrieunus, possibly the second best wolf in the Republican series
Cr.20/1 didrachm, the best wolf in the Republican series, and probably the first coin type struck in the city of Rome itself, best displayed beside Satrienus
Cr.235/1c Sextus Pompeius Fostulus. Just another wolf (and twins) but with shepherd, fig tree and birds. I searched many years for a coin with a complete SEX.POM.FOSTVLVS reverse legend



Cr.405/2 Plaetoria denarius with Sors, the young boy who is a god of luck determined by drawing lots. Note the kid’s face is fully defined, which you don’t often get.
Cr.405/5 Plaetoria denarius with Mercury, another from the same beautifully engraved series, this one pretty minty
Cr.410/7 Terpsichore with tortoise. I added several lovely Muses in the last year or two including Erato (the less-rare variety), Euterpe and Polhymnia, but I especially like the centering and strike on this



Cr.437/2 Coelius Caldus denarius, a type that always comes with a beautiful obverse but on this the many details of the reverse altar type are unusually clear too
Cr.440/1 Sicinia denarius on a large flan and perfectly centered, so that the reverse details are all clear, very unusual for this type
Cr.447/1a Pompey the Great and Varro, struck on a huge flan and provenance to an early 1960s de Falco sale. Of beautiful style. Note that many of this supposed type being currently offered by sale across the internet are, at best Dacian imitations in poor style and many actually look cast. This is the real thing and rarely found as nice.



Cr.448/2 Hostilia denarius supposedly showing Vercingetorix. Perfect portrait, beautiful reverse, a little flatness but not anywhere important, I was delighted to get this for a relatively modest outlay
Cr.455/2 and 455/4, a denarius and a sestertius from Caius Antius Restio. The denarius is the sole Banti plate coin for this variety where the trophy splits the legend. The sestertius with bucranium is a famously popular but difficult to get type.



Cr.462/1b Cato denarius, another on a huge flan (you’ll guess by now that’s something I like) and unusually complete for a type that comes terribly offstruck as standard
Cr.464/1 and 464/2 Carisia denarii. For me the rounded item with wreath is a dioscurus cap  and not an upper die as it would be infernally tough to hit the rounded surface straight one. Or perhaps that explains the paradox that the only coin type displaying a minting scene always comes terribly struck, as do all Carisia denarii. This pair are really exceptionally well-made



Cr.468/1 and 468/2 a pair of Caesarian issues from Spain. The first usually comes in a much cruder style, these two are untypically nice examples of a usually ugly series
Cr.472/2 Papia denarius with Triumphus. Very unusually with a complete reverse that includes the wing of the eagle straddling the border dots, and with the rare obverse type and legend TRIVMPVS.



This is Part B, the final part showing my recent acquisitions in the Imperatorial era, will follow shortly

Andrew

Offline Joe Sermarini

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Re: Roman Republican coins – two years of photo updates
« Reply #2 on: July 05, 2015, 02:08:52 pm »
Beautiful coins!
Joseph Sermarini
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Offline Carausius

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Re: Roman Republican coins – two years of photo updates
« Reply #3 on: July 05, 2015, 02:56:54 pm »
Having been the underbidder on one or two of these, I agree with Joe. Beautiful group of coins!

Offline Charles S

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Re: Roman Republican coins – two years of photo updates
« Reply #4 on: July 05, 2015, 03:19:04 pm »
What a fabulous collection.  I could and will spend quite some time admiring them.  Many thanks for putting all these online.

Charles
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Re: Roman Republican coins – two years of photo updates
« Reply #5 on: July 05, 2015, 03:53:36 pm »
I think my favorite is Cr.205/2.  Are there many decorated prow-sterns in the prow series? Nice photo capture, too.

Offline Andrew McCabe

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Re: Roman Republican coins – two years of photo updates
« Reply #6 on: July 05, 2015, 04:49:15 pm »
Some more new acquisitions, this time Imperatorial coins

Cr.479/1 Sextus Pompeius as. A common type, but rarely found in good condition and not tooled.
Cr.480/1 Buca’s Dream of Sulla denarius, or much more likely, Selene and Endymion, the moon-goddess who medicates and then seduces a handsome shepherd night after night. As with the common Erato denarius type, this is likely another instance of Victorian prudishness blotting out any numismatic story with erotic overtones. Struck on a very broad flan (did I mention that I like?)
Cr.480/2 Julius Caesar DICT QVART denarius struck by Marcus Mettius. The title indicates a date before 15th February 44 BC and therefore this as the first lifetime portrait of any living Roman on any Roman coin (as distinct from Provincial), and also the first portrait of a Roman Emperor for those who consider this the start of Imperial coinage. A good portrait too.



Cr. 480/7b, Cr.480/19 and Cr.480/21, three more non-standard Julius Caesar 44 BC types. We’ve all seen enough Standing Venus’. The seated-Venus Buca shares an obverse die with a Sepullia Cr.480/10 in my own collection: https://www.flickr.com/photos/ahala_rome/4636129591/ Cossutia’s A.A.A.F.F. type commemorates the moneyers duty: Auro, Argento, Aere, Flando, Feriundo. The desultor type – two horses with one rider – was evidently struck by Antony. Ted Buttrey is convinced that all Cr.480 types from 480/1 to 480/19 precede the Ides of March, 480/21 and 480/22 were a separate issue by Antony later in the year, and the rare 480/20 (combing a Caesar portrait with an Antony desultor reverse) is merely an accidental hybrid whereby an old obverse die was mistakenly used during the Antonine issue.



Cr.483/2 Sextus Pompeius denarius by Nasidius. Deserves a better photo as one doesn’t notice the crustiness in hand, provenance 1952 Santamaria sale of the Signorelli collection. I wonder might this be cleanable
Cr.486/1 Accoleia with Acca Larentina and the Nymphs of Querquetulanae bearing beam with oak trees. Another coin struck on an extraordinary flan, and unworn
Cr.494/17 Mark Antony and Publius Clodius, these Clodia types for Antony and Caesar being excessively rare. I really never thought I’d own one, let alone as nice as this



Cr.494/38 Caius Vibius Varus with Minerva and Hercules. Just a very difficult type to find not flat struck. I also got its twin typeHercules obverse and Minerva reverse – last year
Cr.496/3 Mark Antony with Sol. Good if ugly portrait on a rare type
Cr.513/2 Marcus Arrius Secundus with portrait of Octavian. Provenance 1953 sale of the J. Rashleigh collection by Glendinings. A nice example.



Cr.505/4 Quintus Caepio Brutus and Marcus Servilius preceding his reversion to his birth-name Marcus Junius Brutus. The denarius of this type is actually rarer, so I got the gold aureus instead.
Cr.506/3 Brutus quinarius with unusually lovely surfaces.
Cr.507/2 Casca Longus and Brutus. Once again, a rarity that is best displayed on a very large flan




Cr.517/8 Antony and Octavian denarius, the rarer type with symbols behind the Imperators’ heads, engraved in very fine style. Struck at a different mint and to different technical standards to the common Cr.517/2
Cr.522/4 Lucius Plancus and Mark Antony denarius. Exceptionally complete and well preserved albeit a little ragged.
Cr.536/3 Mark Antony denarius with trophy



Cr.538/1 Apostolo Zeno collection denarius of Octavian. Zeno was a late 1600s Venetian polymath who collected Republican coins; this was one of the better pieces, and now it’s mine. My second oldest provenance – the oldest being a d’Este coin (so-called, but incorrectly, Gonzaga)
Cr.546/4 Scarpus denarius for Octavian. I got several new Scarpus types in recent years; this is rarer than the open hand types.
Sear Imperators 421 Octavian denarius with Senate House - Curia Julia. This type was much discussed on Forum recently actually in relation to my old example of this type that I upgraded from https://www.forumancientcoins.com/board/index.php?topic=102150.0



That’s it for now, perhaps for another couple of years. As mentioned in the initial post, general updates can be seen by looking back through my Flickr pages:
https://www.flickr.com/photos_user.gne?path=ahala_rome&nsid=&page=&details=1

The complete collection, including inserts from other wonderful sources, can be seen in the 20 albums here, set up according to Crawford arrangement:
https://www.flickr.com/photos/ahala_rome/collections/72157651148771015/

Andrew

Offline clueless

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Re: Roman Republican coins – two years of photo updates
« Reply #7 on: July 05, 2015, 04:56:01 pm »
 +++

clueless

Offline slokind

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Re: Roman Republican coins – two years of photo updates
« Reply #8 on: July 05, 2015, 08:24:53 pm »
These are a treasure indeed.
If I were a quarter century younger and were to try to collect another category it probably would be Republican, which also would give me the excuse to properly master the history, or at least to try to.  I used to feel proud of having worked/earned my way through three degrees at a good university, but in retirement I have learned that I stole the leisure for thought and reading just to do so.
Not that learning the Danubian and western Anatolian lands from their coins has not been a great privilege and one that no professors then even at UC Berkeley could have taught me. 
All I want is another life to lead.  Anyway, thank you Andrew.
Pat L.

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Re: Roman Republican coins – two years of photo updates
« Reply #9 on: July 05, 2015, 09:24:32 pm »
Andrew:
All I can say is "gulp."
Oh, and: Do you have me in your will? :-)
PeteB

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Re: Roman Republican coins – two years of photo updates
« Reply #10 on: July 05, 2015, 10:03:53 pm »
Hi Andrew,

Those are very impressive additions to your collection! Especially the Pomponius Rufus denarius.

My heart skipped a beat when you mentioned that many examples of Cr.447/1a currently up for sale are Dacian imitations or casts. I just happened to have bought one recently from an auction house, a few months ago. Are there any obvious signs to identify the Dacian imitations?

Offline Andrew McCabe

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Re: Roman Republican coins – two years of photo updates
« Reply #11 on: July 05, 2015, 10:56:39 pm »
My heart skipped a beat when you mentioned that many examples of Cr.447/1a currently up for sale are Dacian imitations or casts. I just happened to have bought one recently from an auction house, a few months ago. Are there any obvious signs to identify the Dacian imitations?

Yes. The style is completely wrong. The most obvious sign is the portrait. All the genuine official issues look exactly like my coin, with a very straight nose and handsome features. If yours looks different in any way then it's part of the vast flood of new items which first appeared about three years ago. Some certainly look cast to me, and I say that after handling some.

Here is one explicitly described as an imitation

http://www.acsearch.info/search.html?id=2281123

Note the poor style portrait the wonky letters and the retrograde N. Many are not so described. Perhaps 100 pieces in thus style have been sold in recent years. None before about 2010. Some have terrible surfaces. I wouldn't want to own one.

Offline traveler

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Re: Roman Republican coins – two years of photo updates
« Reply #12 on: July 05, 2015, 11:05:51 pm »
Hi Andrew,

Thanks! I'll post my coin on the boards for everyone to have a look then. It does look different from yours, unfortunately.

Offline Andrew McCabe

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Re: Roman Republican coins – two years of photo updates
« Reply #13 on: July 05, 2015, 11:14:55 pm »
I think my favorite is Cr.205/2.  Are there many decorated prow-sterns in the prow series? Nice photo capture, too.

Many Republican bronzes have one or other form of prow decoration. Many of these include ornamentally designed prowstems, sometimes with a female head and sometimes with abstract designs. Other decorations include a wolfs head on the end of the mid-wale projection, dolphins, clubs, dogs and anything else the imagination runs to, sometimes on the side of the prow, sometimes as part of the deck superstructure no doubt intended to show on board items. Thankfully such varations abound lest my collection of prows becomes dull.

I deliberately refrained from showing too many prow bronzes or dioscuri types in this update as I wanted to entertain as much as educate, but I bought many prows and many dioscuri pairs in the last two years n just as in previous years.

Offline Andrew McCabe

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Re: Roman Republican coins – two years of photo updates
« Reply #14 on: July 06, 2015, 01:31:08 am »
These are a treasure indeed.
If I were a quarter century younger and were to try to collect another category it probably would be Republican, which also would give me the excuse to properly master the history, or at least to try to.  I used to feel proud of having worked/earned my way through three degrees at a good university, but in retirement I have learned that I stole the leisure for thought and reading just to do so.
Not that learning the Danubian and western Anatolian lands from their coins has not been a great privilege and one that no professors then even at UC Berkeley could have taught me.  
All I want is another life to lead.  Anyway, thank you Andrew.
Pat L.

Dear Pat

I'm particularly pleased with your comments, which I value especially as your knowledgeable contributions to Forum tend to be from month to month rather daily. I was struck by this: "I used to feel proud of having worked/earned my way... but in retirement I have learned that I stole the leisure for thought and reading just to do so." I've recently got off the forced-work treadmill (as of 18 months ago). Oddly, I feel more intent than ever to make sure I don't waste my unscheduled days. The lack of a timetable set by others doesn't automatically lead to more personal productivity, as evenings tend to get wasted in front of a big or small or tiny screen rather than by reading Polybius, or visiting Greece, or staring at the sky and thinking. I will dare to contradict you on one point however  - you should remain immensely proud of the work done and degrees gained, because these are the hard work of ploughing, planting, watering and weeding, without which the harvest feast won't taste so sweet. The 25 years I spent working in Africa, the middle east, south and north America and Asia have been the perfect preparation for my current life contemplating the beginnings of European civilisation, if only because I've seen how civilisations grow. Each time I visit Lagos I'm struck how close it seems to the ancient Rome I know, in every way that matters.

I ask others who replied to take these comments as my thanks to you all. I would like to append some thoughts on collecting.

Despite collecting Republican coins for 30 years, my collection has constantly been churned and upgraded and refocused. Two-thirds of the coins in my current collection (in cost as well as number terms) have been acquired in the last five years, and I'm sure I could have made the same statement in 2010 as regards what I added in 2005-2010. Others don't do it this way, either because they are disciplined enough to go for the best coins early which means forgoing numbers for quality, or they are undisciplined enough to grab and keep every variety they've ever bought, and even include duplicates. There's no merit to any one way to go about forming what will be the final manifestation of your coin collection. Some ways are more efficient - the disciplined quality-from-day-1 approach - and some ways are more delightful - the "if I don't have the type I want it now" approach. There's no especial merit to my approach either, which has been one of a "designed collection", where I had a particular view of what I wanted my collection to look like in the future, and made conscious decisions about which compromises were right for me, and which not. I have been taking my inspiration from sources such as Robert Carson's 1978 book "Principal Coins of the Romans" that selects and illustrates 319 carefully thought-through Roman Republican coin types, and from various sale catalogues of famous collectors such as RBW, Martini, Haeberlin and many others. In each of these cases my goal has been to do better - to the extent that I could within my resources - than any previous collector in that collector's area of weakness. For example, in having a comprehensive bronzes collection, I've bettered Haeberlin and Hersh, both of whom regarded the area as too difficult. The silver fraction coverage betters most dedicated denarius collectors such as Nicolas. RBW is perhaps the toughest to match given that his collection was replete with high-end denarius examples, but I'm trying to in different ways. My bronzes though far fewer in numbers are significantly better in their average quality than those of RBW. RBW ceded gold at an early date and dropped it from his collecting interests although all his gold coins have been integrated into the book of his colllection, but I'm still adding an occasional aureus, often nicked, worn and ex jewellery. As for silver, my especial trick as you'll have seen from this acquisitions summary is to look for large-flan fine style beauties with perfect surfaces, such as the Pompey Varro, the Pomponius Rufus, or the Casca Longus above, but with some considerable wear. For each I paid the price for a nice VF and get a coin than on sheer beauty can beat many an EF. Through such selections my aim for many years has been to match or beat the best collections in the areas where they are least strong, because I surely could never beat them in the areas they are most strong, given that FDC Imperatorial types will always remain out of reach. Provenance hunting is another way to add collector-value to modest coins. I like buying coins with no known provenance, and then making discoveries. As for resources, many of the coins illustrated in this thread come from disbursing a one-time lump sum over a couple of years, others from the proceeds of upgrade sales, and the rest from raiding my monthly income. So I really can't afford to be buying coins like this. But that's fine. As a collector, I advocate all financial measures short of bankruptcy (or maybe even including bankruptcy) in order to improve my collection.

I want to be just like Greece.

Andrew

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Re: Roman Republican coins – two years of photo updates
« Reply #15 on: July 06, 2015, 08:57:42 am »
Hi Andrew,

Beautiful coins!!!

I especially like the Cr. 447/1a (Pompey/Varro) coin. That may be the nicest and most artistic dolphin I've ever seen on a coin.

Meepzorp

Offline Lerian

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Re: Roman Republican coins – two years of photo updates
« Reply #16 on: July 06, 2015, 12:34:09 pm »
Thank you Andrew for your thoughts in the last part of the post.

I am going to copy, paste and then print that out.


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Re: Roman Republican coins – two years of photo updates
« Reply #17 on: July 06, 2015, 03:48:44 pm »
Thank you Andrew for sharing these wonderful coins with us.
Hard to say which coin is the most impressive. I think for now I will choose the wolf series.

I have made me a boomark to come back to these and enjoy at my leisure. 

Offline Jordan Montgomery

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Re: Roman Republican coins – two years of photo updates
« Reply #18 on: July 06, 2015, 11:39:20 pm »
All I can say is "wow"! Your collection is extremely impressive and even this small selection shows a great amount of work and thought has gone into it. I think my favorite of these is probably Cr. 410/7. I have only been a collector of ancients for about a year, but I have made the decision recently to focus on collecting Republican and Imperatorial, largely thanks to reading through the catalogs of RBW's collection and reading about your collection as well as simply finding the Roman Republic as one of the most interesting periods of human history.

So, as a new collector who is constantly on the lookout for interesting coins to add to my want list, I have to ask: do you think there are any relatively common/available Republican coins that are sorely under-appreciated given the history around their issue? One example that comes to mind for me is one that I acquired recently, Cr. 393/1a: Cn. Lentulus, Denarius, 76-75(or 74 if you believe Harlan) BC. Being an issue minted to pay Pompey's troops in Hispania during the Sertorian War, I was shocked that one could find one of these in VF or gVF for what seemed like a relatively low price compared to other issues that seemed to be similarly common, which I think is partially due to few dealers and auctioneers advertising the history behind it.

Thanks again for all the work you've done to share your collection with the world, and I look forward to seeing what the future holds for the Andrew McCabe collection.

-Jordan
Gallery of my collection with notes and discussion of Republican history and numismatics

Offline Andrew McCabe

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Re: Roman Republican coins – two years of photo updates
« Reply #19 on: July 07, 2015, 04:56:00 am »
All I can say is "wow"! Your collection is extremely impressive and even this small selection shows a great
So, as a new collector who is constantly on the lookout for interesting coins to add to my want list, I have to ask: do you think there are any relatively common/available Republican coins that are sorely under-appreciated given the history around their issue? One example that comes to mind for me is one that I acquired recently, Cr. 393/1a: Cn. Lentulus, Denarius, 76-75(or 74 if you believe Harlan) BC. Being an issue minted to pay Pompey's troops in Hispania during the Sertorian War, I was shocked that one could find one of these in VF or gVF for what seemed like a relatively low price compared to other issues that seemed to be similarly common, which I think is partially due to few dealers and auctioneers advertising the history behind it.

Jordan

That's a great question.

First on your comment re the work and thought gone into my collection - it's true, but that holds true for just about every serious collector irrespective of resources. I've had lengthy private email chats with collectors of $50 Republican struck bronzes on the subject of working out which of various absolutely ugly but relatively more or less pretty inexpensive bronzes really deserved that month's $50 investment, and it's heartening to see a collector steering himself to the perfect choice. Such careful decision making today is the genesis of an RBW quality collection in 25 years time.

The question you asked is one I've hardly heard before. I'm constantly noting which coins are the most over-rated relative to pricing and rarity (Caesar elephants take very first place) but not which are the most underrated. Your mention of Cr.393 is a good one. It's just not that popular a type, partly because the reverse often comes badly offstruck and its concave flan means elements near the edge are easily flattened. But part of the reason must be lack of general interest among the Italy-philes who are generally Roman Republican collectors for a series that's got a Spanish context. In the same vein, one great series is the Annia series Cr.366 issued by his quaestors in two locations. So you've got one issuer, two quaestors and two mints, the complexity of the current Spanish campaign, speculation about the nature of the issue and so on.

Another group of neglected issues is the coinage produced by Cinna and the Marian factions at Rome in the 80s BC. They are common and well made, but no one stops to consider the historical context. Its just about how nice a Q.ANTO BALB one can get. I also like the coinage of the era of Marius, with the heavy well struck bronzes made whilst he was desparately defending northern Italy, and then the large quinarius coinage after he had sorted out Gaul. Thinking of the context stops one insulting those sometimes ugly little quinarii. In fact there's an exceptionally beautiful Egnatuleia above.

You'll notice in my three notes above that I always use the full name of the issuer. Quintus Antonius Balbus in this case. That's because it's a useful memory jog that these moneyers and their senior relatives were live, breathing, historical men, each with a first name their mother called them. I find this helps to put an historical mindset into collecting.

Two wider areas that I think deserve much more attention are the struck bronzes especially of the second Punic war where the bronzes followed the military moves and were presumably camp money in Apulia, Sicily or wherever. You csn geographically track the military campaigns using these Punic war bronzes, better than you can with the silver. I've myself added to the story with my work on anonymous bronzes of the second Punic war in Essays Russo. And the overall currency of the second Punic war is a neglected and undervalued area. I never read in a sales description that a crude style quadrigatus probably related to the emergency at Rome after Cannae in 216-215 BC. I should read it, but I don't...

These anyway are some ideas in response to your great question and thank you for asking it!

 

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