Dorchester hoard 1936

[Philoromaos]

Does anyone have any info on the Roman 3rd century hoard, found at Dorchester in 1936? I've been searching google but can find very little on this hoard, in essence just the date, location and a black and white photo of the hoard when uncovered. Thanks in advance for any help.


Adrian

[curtislclay]

Harold Mattingly's extremely valuable publication of this hoard, comprising 20,748 coins, is in Numismatic Chronicle 1939, pp. 21-61.

The British Museum acquired almost 3000 of the coins for its collection, "more than 1,500 coins of common types were left in the original condition and returned to Dorchester Museum...to preserve a picture of the hoard as first uncovered", while "the vast residue of the hoard has been finding a brisk market at Dorchester and has been doing its part to spread some slight knowledge of the third century of the Empire in Britain."

[Philoromaos]

Thanks Curtis. My girlfriend has just bought me this group of five coins from the Dorchester hoard, some with the original tickets! One question I have though. I searched the Volusian Ant and found the site in the link below, according to that the coin is rare with only one example in the Dorchester hoard, could this possibly be that one coin?


 http://www.liveauctioneers.com/item/6441595



Adrian

[leetoone]

Found on 11 May 1936, and according to Anne Robertson in An Inventory of Romano-British Coin Hoards, the hoard total was 22,121 as illustrated on one of Adrian's tickets. Only 20,748 were identified by the BM as Curtis correctly states. Presumably the others were unidentifiable

2,817 were retained by the BM. Some of these were detailed later by Besly and Bland in the Cunetio hoard report.

There were 632 coins of Volusian.

[curtislclay]

Apparently just the dealer's mistake. The hoard contained 42 specimens of that antoninianus (Cohen 118).

[curtislclay]

Found on 11 May 1936, and according to Anne Robertson in An Inventory of Romano-British Coin Hoards, the hoard total was 22,121 as illustrated on one of Adrian's tickets. Only 20,748 were identified by the BM as Curtis correctly states. Presumably the others were unidentifiable.

Mattingly's article, p. 23, note 2:

"The total number received in the British Museum was 22,121; the difference [to the 20,748 identified in the inventory] is represented by coins only roughly identified and returned, uncleaned."

[leetoone]

I may be wrong but the Volusian ticket might be a Seaby ticket. They were certainly selling some Dorchester coins in 1954. I don't have a 1954 Bulletin to hand at the moment but will check it out over the next few days.

[curtislclay]

I agree, the Volusian ticket looks like Seaby's, the Philip I ticket too.

I don't find either of those particular coins in the 1954 or 1955 Bulletins, but the price level seems correct for those years.

[Philoromaos]

The seller mentioned in his desciption that many of the coins were bought from Seabys. I figured that there must have been a mistake somewhere with that Volusian ant as it's certainly not listed as rare in my copy of RSC IV. Here's the what the dealer wrote.....

This offer is for a group of 5 roman coins I recently acquired from the dispersal of a collection of coins mainly put together in the 1950/60’s, (many originally purchased  through Seaby, and will be listed over the coming weeks)
 
These particular coins have old collectors labels with them, giving a provenance of the “found Dorchester 1936”.   
 

[Equity]

A very interesting thread. I recently purchased, for curiosity's sake, a lot of five plated, cut coins purportedly from the Dorchester hoard. Bright copper cores are visible at the cuts, but the plating appears largely intact. The base types appear to include a legionary denarius of Mark Antony, a Republican denarius (of Julius Bursio?), and perhaps denarii of Tiberius and Augustus.

I don't have access to the publication by Mattingly mentioned by Mr. Clay; would anyone be so kind as to refer to it and determine if there's any mention of plated or cut coins? The descriptions I've located online, as well as the summaries in this thread, imply there were very few denarii in the hoard, though there were apparently a sizeable number that were unidentifiable. Perhaps these cut coins were classified as such, if they are indeed from Dorchester.

Thanks,
Derek

http://www.hadriancoins.com/Dorchester.htm
http://www.hookmoor.com/home/?page_id=388

Discovered on 11th May 1936, the Dorchester hoard is one of the largest hoards found in Britain. It was found in several containers while rebuilding the Marks and Spencer store at the back of South Street in Dorchester. The last coins dated to the reign of Gallienus and so the date of disposition was around AD 257. Of the 22,121 coins sent to the British Museum, 20,748 were identified (16 denarii and 20,732 antoniniani). The British Museum retained 2,817 coins (some of these were detailed later by Besly and Bland in the Cunetio hoard report) and other groups of coins from the hoard were distributed to various museums around the country.

http://www.british-history.ac.uk/report.aspx?compid=127578

The most notable find made in Dorchester is the mid 3rd-century coin hoard of over 22,000 antoniniani found, with a few denarii, at Marks and Spencer's, South Street, in 1936 (Plate 230; see Monument (194)). (fn. 29) Of the containers the bronze jug at least (Fig. p. 565) was a foreign import, already old when the hoard was deposited in A.D. 257 or soon afterwards. The coins probably represent a consignment of cash not yet in general circulation.

[Carausius]

Philoromaos:

I think you should marry that girl!