NEWP late Republican denarius - 2

My second denarius is well known to this list thanks to the great write up we got from TIF when she got her specimen.
http://www.tifcollection.com/#!mussidius-longus-denarius-solcloacina/c1eyl

Mine is not as nice but it is mine. As expected of a coin from 42 BC, workmanship could be better; centering could be a lot better. I'll not describe it fully since I want to encourage everyone to read TIF's page. I did notice our coins have a difference. My coin and most I have found when researching the matter show the head of Sol facing slightly to the right of center while TIF's looks straight forward.

Before this coin arrived I wrote TIF blaming her for my having bought the coin. She replied that I had no complaint considering the number of coins she had bought after seeing things I posted here. That, folks, is what we have here --- a mutual enabling society for the benefit of those who would have us drain our bank accounts by buying their coins. How many of you recall seeing TIF's sewer goddess coins and said that you wanted one? Who, besides me, has bought one of these thanks to TIF? Who's next?

I might add that my coin is also special since it came with a ticket showing it sold in an Alex Malloy sale in 1972. It was marked as having brought $20 on a $40 estimate. It seems nobody wanted it in 1972 so it went cheap. I wish I had bought it then but I rarely spent that much on a coin back then. If I had, I would have sold it in 1974 when I had to cash in most of my coins so maybe the long term good was better served this way. It was not $20 in 2015. Oh, well. At least it has not been batch cleaned for a while but the tone does not look right in my first photo attempt. Neither of my new Republican photos are satisfactory. I may have to go back to square one on coin photos. I'm getting worse. Tomorrow?

 

Log in or Sign up to hide this ad.

I'm with you on this coin. TIF has made me want one, but I haven't made the plunge just yet. I'm also with TIF. I see all your wonderful coins and think I want one of each. So, I blame both of you. And Steve, JA, Chris, Mikey, Martin, Z, etc, etc, etc. Oh and lets not forget Ancient Joe. Although I'll never have his quality of coin, I can still dream.

 

I was going to blame TIF as well, then I remember telling her when I first saw hers that I had the type was on my want list too but wished that more of them came well-centered. Actually, though, she is to blame for so many others that are on my list that one more won't make a difference. I'll feel better when I find one of my own .

Your shares with TIF's the uncommon CLOAC legend variant on the platform. It's usually CLOACIN.

 

Muahaha... the evil plan is working .

The Sol/Cloacina denarii are harder to find and as we've all found, usually aesthetically deficient in one way or another. I'd like to find this type with better centering but suspect I would not like the price tag. Doug's coin shows the platform's steps, which is nice.

As Zumbly indicated, the reverse is a die match to mine:

Looks like we have an official club, Ancient Coin Enablers Society. Here's the logo. Who recognizes the little man?

​

 

If you don't recognise the little man, then you've been living under a rock.

 

Maybe not... board games aren't as popular now as when you and I were young.

 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shrine_of_Venus_Cloacina
The drawing on the above page shows the round shrine from two sides. Look at the left drawing. The two figures are not parallel in placement but the one on the left is closer to us. We see stairs and CLOAC. That appears to be what the round surface showed from that side rather than just an abbreviation for the coin. The right drawing was taken from 90 degrees around the circle. Now the post on our coins at the far right is between the figures. The page also has a photo showing the 2012 appearance of the ruins. Are the stairs are below ground or is this the supporting structure and everything in the coin image is gone?. If what we see at ground level is just above the lettering there could be more below. I have no idea if anyone is working on the excavation. I have no idea if anyone involved with the site even looked at the coins.

There are two obverses. Concordia suggests a city with a sewer is a happy city. How did we get Sol? He does not shine down there.

Because Monopoly was once considered in the Public Domain, someone could have produce a version where we buy coins rather than properties. When my daughter was in college, there were many variations on the idea but later changes in the copyright law gave the idea back to Parker Brothers. Baltic and Mediterranean could be Gloria Exercitus and Falling Horseman while Park Place and Boardwalk could be dekadrachms or medallions. Color grouped properties could be three related coins like Imperatorial denarii or 12 Caesars sestertii. It would be hard to keep the number of property coins down to the standard. Board games are fun to make but not as much fun to play by 21st century standards so I doubt we will see the ACES version.

 

Here's that image from wikipedia:

The caption says " The Sacrum Cloacina as it appeared in August 2012. The top of the shrine is seen at ground level. Its base is several meters below the surface." but I wonder if that is accurate. Based on the coin, what shows in today's ruins couldn't be the top of the shrine. It looks more like the foundation of the shrine.

One explanation from the Numismatic Fine Arts auction catalog, Julius Caesar and His Legacy; an Auction of Roman Coins, 13 May 1991, p. 8:

"The types of this denarius reflect the notions of cleansing and renewal which were implicit in the mandate of the Second Triumvirate. Sol, the sun god, was one of Mark Antony's patron deities. Ancient myths told of a nightly battle between the sun and the powers of darkness, from which the sun always emerged triumphant. This cycle provided an inspiring allegory for the hoped-for victory over Caesar's assassins.

More obscure is the scene depicted on the reverse of this denarius. It is a shrine that would have been familiar to the coin's contemporaries, dedicated jointly to Venus Cloacina, the patroness of the city sewers, and Concord. Thus is symbolizes both purification-- through in a manner slightly incongruous to modern taste-- and the cooperation between Antony and Octavian."

The loss of popularity of board games is sad. My fondest family holiday memories are of stuffing ourselves silly and then sitting around playing board games and solving jigsaw puzzles.

Remember the game "Masterpiece", where the players were art dealers trying to buy and sell famous paintings? The paintings and values were on separate cards which were blindly paired prior to the game's start. Some were forgeries. The goal was to amass the most money. To do so you had to deceitfully sell the forgery, if you were unlucky enough to be stuck with it.

A few weeks ago I considered trying to make an ancient coin version of this game. Who would play it with me though?

...

Just in case anyone doesn't get the logo, the little man is the Monopoly character as he appears on this card.

​

 

TIF, your monopoly-photo got me all nostalgic (45 years ago, I would often join my older sister and her friends when they played this cool ol' board-game ... good times)



... these were the cards from our 1963 version of the game (Clue)

 

Interesting! I had never thought of that, and had assumed the legend was part of the coin's design naming the structure rather than any lettering on the structure itself. The illustrations on the Wiki page can only have been based on the Cloacina coins since they're the only surviving depictions of the shrine, but apart from the legend, I don't actually see the differences on the coins that can be seen in the illustrations. All the coins seem to have the statues and stairs in the same position.

 

Another favorite!! "Colonel Mustard, with a lead pipe, in the kitchen."

 

As always, a great thread and super posts!!

And I BLAME ALL of you for my 'coin-habit' gone uncontrollably viral... LOL----Since you all have so many fantastic coins that I wish to own...

No obverse 'Dioscuri' etc for me as yet, but a two-headed monster and other examples are on my auction block---We'll see if "Fortune" continues to favor me...

Hmmm, I rarely played 'Clue' but often played 'Monopoly'....and a poker through the night..... I guess I was into adrenaline rushes

(The face-palm is for 'ro' )

 

Gotta say I've appreciated the Miss Scarlet updates over the years...

1960s version...


1980s version...

2000s version...


The one I was familiar with was the pencil necked UK version...

 

It is what it is => I had the cartoon version from the 60's (I do like the pencil necked version ... very cool ... and Miss Johansson certainly has a couple of good points as well)

 

I know this thread has gone past where anyone interested will visit but I'm posting my reshoot anyway. This one was shot with a camera in the closet.

 

I like this version of the photo. It shows the contrast between high and low points quite well.

 

I like it and the other new RR reshoot much better.

 

You did the reshoot in the closet?
It is much better Doug.

 

I love games!

 

Thanks. I try too hard to avoid blocked highlights and shadows to the point of having no specular sparkle. My camera rig is set up in a closet so I don't have to get it out when I want to shoot.