I have seen a few lovely examples of Augustus and Agrippa dupondii from Nemausus over recent months from fellow collectors. I have been keeping an eye open for a few years for a nice example in my price range. If you watch the coins that come on the market you will notice that there are a large number if halved coins, where the coins have been deliberately halved in antiquity, more than likely for change. The coins are typically halved between the busts of Agrippa and Augustus with coins with either bust being readily available. I was wondering if anyone knows of any reasons why this should be happening in Nemausus at this time? I haven't noticed that same phenomenon from other parts of the empire at other times but it could just be that I haven't looked. I am sure this topic will have been covered before somewhere but I haven't found anything after what was a fairly short search. Here is my halved coin of the type as an example of what I am talking about. Augustus and Agrippa Cut Half Dupondius Obv:– Heads of [Agrippa, wearing rostral wreath,] and Augustus, wearing laurel wreath, back to back, [IM]P [DIV]I F. Rev:– COL [NEM], Crocodile chained to palm branch Minted in Nemausus Mint, Gaul, struck after 10 AD. Regards, Martin
I certainly don't know the answer to that. Maybe RPC has something about it. Doug might even know. Nice half coin!
I don't know the answer either, but I believe you are correct. I've seen more halved Nemausus coins than any other. Interesting. I hope someone has an answer or a theory.
I have no idea why Gaul seemed to prefer this to striking a second denomination. However Nimes was not the only ones. There are cut coins from several places but the other common one is Viennne in Gaul which had Augustus and Caesar. These are harder to find (whole or half) than the Nemausus coin. I don't have a whole.
I sometimes wonder if these weren't made to be cut. Think about it - with the two opposing heads on the obverse, a cut coin would still have a whole portrait. Maybe that's what the locals considered to be the "coin."
Yah, that is odd (I asked Doug in one of his other threads, and he said that it was more common to cut coins in half when there were "two" rulers or co-rulers on the coins) ... Hmmm, I guess that's kinda similar to where two-bits and four-bits came from? ... cutting-up a bigger coin to make some spare-change?
