Nice! C Maianius Denarius, 153 BC Obv: Helmeted head of Roma right, X behind Rev: Victory in biga right, C MAIANI below, ROMA in exergue
I agree.. .really nice detail on the horses and legends.... Great centering on the strike... it's a beauty!
It is a nice coin but posting it without commentary... makes me curious to know if I'm missing something. Andrew, I know you have a lot of great coins... what it is about THIS coin that makes it a thread-starter? Is the moneyer noteworthy? Is it rare or have a unique characteristic? If it's just a nice coin, that's cool but I wonder if there's something else.
Yes good point. It's not just that it's a brockage. It's that it's a brockage of an extremely rare type. From the obverse only pic, maybe it wasn't obvious. But this is rare as hens teeth. Collectors don't usually realise that it comes with symbols because it's so rare; Crawford lists arrow, corn-ear, ear, flower, knife, lituus, pedum, pentagram, scales, stilus, torch, wheel and a curly wing. This is evidently a stylus or stilus. There's a stylus in the British museum example too: But curiously it's a different die. 12 symbols, and symbols shared between dies doesn't sound so rare - 20 or 30 dies would be ordinary rare rather than super rare. However note on my denarius, multiple die breaks also reproduced on the reverse brockage side. Evidently the dies were very badly made and broke easily. That explains how 20 or more dies can equate to great rarity. I have another example with the so called curly wing: This is about as good as they come tbh. Coming back to the rarity of brockages, if one does a search on AC for brockages, one finds dozens with portraits of Julius Caesar or Pompey. Because they are very common types. Collectors think because denarii with nice portraits of Caesar are expensive then they must be rare. They are common as muck with about 200 dies identified just for the Crawford 480 series in the 1974 Alfoeldi die study and probably many more since. A consequence of this Anguipede type being a rare brockage is that there is a high chance I find a provenance (before 2017) even without a picture: a matching type with a matching weight is probably my coin. Good question anyways. It's a coin I really appreciate.
Thanks for your response. I think you may have originally posted a different coin than you intended. The coin in the OP seems to not be connected to the follow-up post. The brockage is very cool and I can see why it is rare and worth posting. I wonder if anyone else here has one of these from the same die and can post a picture. I still need to wrap my mind around the differences between a brockage and a clashed die. I think Doug has a page... I’ll see if I can find it and read up. From what I understand a brockage is from a coin being stuck in one of the dies and striking the next coin, leaving only the impression of the single stuck coin on one side. Clashed dies leave both the impression of the die with a shadow of the other die... correct?
Yes. Clashed dies tend to be faint shadows of the obverse mostly hidden by the normal reverse. Brockages will show no sign of the intended reverse because that die was filled with the coin stuck in it. There are specialists who like brockages but many collectors think of them as defective because you don't get to see the reverse. I am a bit surprised that they don't sell for more in keeping with their scarcity. I can not recall ever hearing of anyone attempting to assemble a set of brockages. There are more of some periods than others but I do not know if, for example, it would be possible to get a 12 Caesars in brockage set. http://www.forumancientcoins.com/dougsmith/brock.html
clearly readable clash die examples are even rarer than brockages. I suspect many more die clashes occurred without any damage. I've described a couple die clashes from my collection in sale descriptions and have others too. Clashed dies result in permanent changes to the die so you get later die matches. Brockages are one off occurrences. I tend therefore to regard clashed dies as more significant as their effects are similar to die breaks. Both cause incuse and reversed effects. In the case of the clash, a negative strikes a negative die and produces a positive in a flat field area of one or both dies which in turn produces a negative on all subsequent coins but of the OPPOSITE face design if the coin. In the case of a brockage, first a positive is produced, that sticks in (usually the upper) die and that produces a negative of the SAME face design of the coin.
Andrew collects Republican coins and I believe he is right for those. I collect Severans and clashes are far more common than brockages. My page linked previously shows several. Clashes can be weak or severe depending on just how hard the hammer was swung. I suspect some resulted when the hammerman realized that there was no blank but just could not stop that swing completely. I have a Clodius Albinus with incuse letters at the bottom and many dots at the top but the severity is shown by the large cud from the broken reverse die at the upper right. Another evidence of a severe clash is my Julia Mamaea. Since clashes are usually on the reverse or upper die, this coin offers three possibilities. 1. The upper die could have been the portrait. 2. The upper die could have been unusually hard compared to the obverse so it caused unusual damage. 3. The obverse here shows slight damage but the reverse die was destroyed by the clash so this coin was made with a new, replacement reverse. I favor guess #3. The best of my clashes is this Constantine I that is also double struck. The double striking shows that the damage was on the die in the same place on both strikes. Note the offset is the same on both sides.
Yes, by the time you get to the later third century (Gallienus / Claudius II), you see many clashed die coins and few brockages. I’m guessing it’s is because after a clash, they’d just keep using the damaged dies when in earlier times the dies would be replaced. I’d love to get a good brockage coin for my collection. Later when I get some time, I’ll try to post some good clashed die examples.
I hate being the one who doesn't get it, but I don't understand the mysteriously laconic first post in this thread. The C. Maianius denarius shown is a pleasing enough coin but, It doesn't seem to be rare, nor is it a brockage. What have I misunderstood?
I think the OP pic may have been a mistake. Andrew is referring to the Plaetorius Cestianus denarius brockage he shows in post #9 of the thread. And what a cool example it is, even though it's missing that reverse that always makes me sigh longingly whenever I see it. None of those four examples offered in the most recent Aureo & Calico sale had my name on it.
Oh, okay. Thanks. If the OP is no longer editable, one of the moderators can reinstate the edit button and @Andrew McCabe can edit the post to show the correct coin, and then other people who stumble upon this thread won't be confused .