I actually meant to bid on this coin in a recent auction and then as auction day rolled around it completely slipped my mind and I went to bed without placing a bid. I was pretty bummed until I saw afterwards that it had been listed at a "buy" price that was lower than the opening bid. I guess sometimes it pays to be forgetful. This coin is from the "CA" series, generally thought to have been struck in Canusium(modern-day Canosa, Italy), circa 209-208 B.C.. Both the mintmark, CA, and and find evidence support Canusium as the mint but neither offer much historical context around the issue, but luckily the Romans left one very interesting clue for future numismatists. The triens denomination of the series, of which @stevex6 has an excellent example(and I hope he'll share it), always come overstruck on bronzes of Acarnania and Oeniadae, though no overstrikes are known to me within any of the other denominations so why would a series struck in Southeast Italy have so many known overstrikes on undertypes from far away across the Adriatic? The answer is that Marcus Valerius Laevinus had earlier driven the Macedonians from this region and this issue from Canusium represents booty captured during this fighting and brought back with the fleet when M. Valerius landed in Southern Italy circa 210-209 B.C.. The trientes were simply overstruck likely because many of the captured coins were close enough to the necessary weight and the rest of the denominations were probably struck on flans whose bronze came from melting down and recasting of the captured booty. Since this issue contains no precious metal coinage, I think it likely that if any precious metal was captured it was either sent back to Rome or used by one of the other Roman field mints operating in Apulia. Roman Republic Æ Sextans(16mm, 4.29g, 10h), anonymous("CA" series), 209-195 B.C., Canusium mint. Head of Mercury right; above, ••; to left, CA downwards / Prow right; above, ROMA; below, ••; to right, CA. Crawford 100/5; Russo RBW -; Sydenham 309f. Note: The reverse appears to read C•A but this is not the case. The "dot" is simply some sort of hard reddish deposit on the reverse. Please share anything relevant. And @stevex6, please share that awesome triens!
Very nice!! I still haven't gone beyond an example each of the various denominations of this period....... and no CA But, just to 'play', I'll throw in a sextans---struck about the time of Hasdrubal's defeat during the 2nd Punic war BTW: Great write-up!!!!
WOW, great job @red_spork ! Double bonus: you got the coin, you got it a great price! I only have a couple Sextans during this time: RR Anon AE Sextans 211-206 BCE Prob Sicily-Katana mintage Cr 69/6a Sear 1211 RR Manlius Vulso AE Sextans Mercury Prow Cr 64/6b
Very nice. The MA type is one I am still missing. Most of them are overstruck as well so you might be able to find remnants of some sort of Sardinian or Sardo-Punic undertype on it.
Nice coin and interesting history lesson. I only have one bronze from the Republic, an anonymous Unica.
