Aesillas Quaestor tetradrachm

[cicerokid]

Here is my 30th ,( should have been 31st), tetradrachm  and one for both the Greco- and Romanophiles.

It is the remarkable Aesillas tetradrachms from the Roman province of Macedon featuring the "portrait" of Alexander the Great with the horns of Ammon and the tools of the Quaestors trade on the reverse. Whilst he sits on his chair, he encourages you with the Club of Hercules to fill his Money Chest, the Fiscus, with your Tax donation.

All we know of Aesillas is these coins but the exact dating/sequencing of the several types is still some matter of debate as is exactly who is named on them.

I hope to find more if I can get a copy of "The coinage in the types of Aesillas, Quaestor" by Bauslaugh.

enjoy,

Cicerokid

[rover1.3]

Very nice example John, you did fine. That's a very interesting type I also like.
Bauslaugh's book is out there in an extremely low price. If you can't find it, send me a pm.

Nikos

[cicerokid]

Here is a more dreamy type of photograph of Alexander the Great from my Aesillas tetradrachm.

He looks more "God like" and distant and the horns of Ammon are more apparent..

enjoy,

[cicerokid]

Been in contact with THE expert on the Aesillas silver coinage, Robert Bauslaugh.

Robert published the definitve book   "The coinage in the types of Aesillas, Quaestor" where the huge die studies he did coupled with hoard evidence totally overthrew the then current theories on the order of the types. 

I now have a copy of this excellent book but I couldn't find my obverse type, it was said to be Bauslaugh Gp 11, but I thought it looked more like a Gp 1 with Theta re-cut  so contacted the oracle.

It now appears my Aesillas tetradrachm is likely to be a NEW OBVERSE! Poor Bob is going to look at all the original photographs just to make sure!

The reverse I couldn't find either, but as with all catalogues the many more reverses to obverses make it un-economical to print them all, and it is generally the obverse dies that get transferred because of the differing wear rates of the 2 dies thus forming the all important die link studies for numismatic sequencing.

Watch this space.

Cic

[Andrew McCabe]

Robert published the definitve book   "The coinage in the types of Aesillas, Quaestor" where the huge die studies he did coupled with hoard evidence totally overthrew the then current theories on the order of the types. 

I now have a copy of this excellent book but I couldn't find my obverse type, it was said to be Bauslaugh Gp 11, but I thought it looked more like a Gp 1 with Theta re-cut  so contacted the oracle.

It now appears my Aesillas tetradrachm is likely to be a NEW OBVERSE! Poor Bob is going to look at all the original photographs just to make sure!

The reverse I couldn't find either, but as with all catalogues the many more reverses to obverses make it un-economical to print them all, and it is generally the obverse dies that get transferred because of the differing wear rates of the 2 dies thus forming the all important die link studies for numismatic sequencing.

You raise an interesting point which occurs in all die studies. Invariably die-studies stop searching and write up their study once they hardly find new dies - this might mean once the last 10 or 20 or 50 or whatever number of coins (depending on the issue size) are from already known dies. In this circumstances it is common to find that another 5% of dies dribble in over the next decade or two, and for die-numbered series (where we know the theoretical total), often the die study reaches convergence at 85% or 90% of the theoretical total number. This is just a factor of time: any give study typically involves 5 years of searching for specimens and if you add another 20 years of coins dribbling in, of course a few more appear but it would be insance to wait for 20 years (else you never publish anything!)

[Randygeki(h2)]

Very nice example!