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Obviously, it's the Loch Ness monster.

 

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I bought this coin because it was, "Apparently unpublished."


Italy. Northern Apulia, Salapia. AE 14 mm, 275-250 BC.
Obv. Dolphin left;above [ΣAΛ]ΑΠΙΝΩΝ.
Rev. Dolphin right.
Not in HN Italy or Garrucci.
3.40 grams; 14.50 mm; RRR. Good VF.

I also bought the coin because it was an Italian bronze from about the time of my cast bronze collection. The coin was sold under the general heading of Greek. I thought this odd because experts, like Wikipedia, say the town was not a Greek colony even thought it was surrounded by colonies. Also, the territory was under Roman control before the first Punic War, see map below. It may have been as early as 300 BC.


I was a bit confused what made coins from an Italian city under Roman control not quite Roman, so I bought another book - Between Rome and Carthage by Michael P Fronda. The book describes the situation in southern Italy and a confederation of city states that was dominated by Rome. Most of the cities continued to struggle for relative power with other lesser powers. Salapia sided with Rome in the 2nd Samnite War and Hannibal in the 2nd Punic War. They stopped issuing coins in their own name after the 2nd Punic War. I will report back after reading a bit more.

 

I am very interested in the why of that observation. I have run across that many times, having to search GREEK areas for VERY Italia coins. This is especially that many Italians, especially the Romans during that time period, had a deep mistrust of "Greek ways."

 

Very interesting coin. Untill now I had never heard about the city of Salapia. So I've learned something today. Thank you

Keep us updated about the book! Looks like an interesting reading.

 

I have some unpublished symbol pairs but I don't have photos. I suppose my rarest "main" type is Q. Cornuficius, Crawford 509/5, struck in Africa in 42 BC:



I wrote some notes about this guy when cataloguing a plated example a while back:


Quintus Cornuficius was the republican governor of Africa Vetus (the "old" province) from 44-42 BC, during the civil wars. He was a man of considerable refinement, a poet and orator and a close friend of Cicero and Catullus. In 43 BC, Cornuficius refused to hand over his province to Antony's nominee, and he was proscribed by the triumviral government. In 42 BC, he was attacked by Titus Sextius, the governor of the neighboring province of Africa Nova. The course of this local conflict mirrored that of the wider civil war. Cornuficius enjoyed some initial success, even briefly invading Sextius' province, but he was ultimately defeated and killed outside Utica in 42 BC. Before his defeat, Cornuficius produced a remarkable coinage in gold and silver, of astonishing artistic achievement. The three obverse types, heads of Africa, Jupiter Ammon, and Ceres-Tanit, all refer to his province of Africa. They share a common reverse, which depicts Cornuficius as augur being crowned by Juno Sospita, seemingly a reference to his own Lanuvine origin. All of these coins are of considerable rarity today. In Tresors Monetaires XX, 2002, p. 1-4, Michel Amandry published a definitive die study and corpus of this fascinating issue. Amandry knew of only 24 denarii of all types, including 12 with the head of Ceres-Tanit. These latter were struck from only three obverse and six reverse dies; three of these reverses were also paired with the Jupiter Ammon obverse.

The present cataloguer is aware of two additional specimens of Ceres-Tanit; thus, this coin is perhaps the fifteenth known example. Following Crawford, the "conventional wisdom" is that all plated Republican silver coins are contemporary forgeries. The coins of Cornuficius seem to present an unmistakable exception to this general rule. Three coins in Amandy's Corpus are also fourrees; thus, including the present coin, out of 15 known examples, four are plated. This is an almost inconceivable percentage, if these fourrees are indeed ancient forgeries. They are struck from two obverse and two reverse dies; thus the hypothetical forger would have needed to possess by happenstance at least two examples of this exceedingly rare coin. There is good reason however to believe that in this particular case the plated coins are just as "official" as the good silver ones, especially as the plated and good silver coins share dies. It is possible to construct a persuasive scenario for this claim which doesn't violate Crawford's general dictum. The good silver coins would be the money Quintus Cornuficius minted to pay his soldiers, in the early, successful days of his struggle for North Africa. As the war turned against him, it is easy to imagine him increasingly strapped for precious metal, and resorting to striking more and more plated denarii. His soldiers expected to be paid, and were probably prepared not to examine that payment overly closely. At the end, he was restricted to Utica and its environs; how much silver could have remained there after months of fighting?.

 

I might add to this note that Crawford doesn't entirely reject the possibility that some plated Imperatorial coins are official. He doesn't mention which types he has in mind. These plated coins of Cornuficius might aptly be compared to the so-called "money of necessity" struck in Athens in the waning days of the Peloponnesian War.

 

Never being one to accept the Crawford rejection, I am always glad to see any example of something that shows 'all' is a dangerous word. However, I also would need to see if there is any possibility that any (even all???) of the rare issue was made by overstriking earlier coins which may or may not have been sorted properly to eliminate fourrees. Certainly a coin worn as much as this example would be hard to classify one way or the other but if even one of the known examples showed even a slight ripple in the design that could have been from an undertype, the possibility of 'accidental' fourrees remains.

I have another problem with the concept of 'official' when it comes to Republican coins. Too many issues were controlled by individuals in some position of authority. What evidence do we have on the limitations placed on them when it comes to contracting out coinage issues? Were all Republicans supposedly struck by the same workers as the previous year's moneyers or was it up to a moneyer to find and oversee a producer of his designs? The styles and workmanship qualities suggest that some were produced with more technical ability than others. When we have more than one 'official' producer of coins in operation, we open the possibility of not only money of necessity but money of opportunity to make the other guy look bad.

 

My rarest, 3 known

Crispus (317-326 AD)
AE3, Micomedia mint (317-320 AD)

OBV: D N FL IVL CRISPVS NOB CAES
REV: PROVIDENTAE CAESS
Jupiter standing left, holding scepter and Victory on globe, palm branch in left field, dot over A in right field
SMN in exergue
RIC VII 31

 

That is a great coin but where did you get the 3 known number? RIC lists it as R4 which means they found 2-3 in the museums they checked and makes no claim on how many are in private hands (like yours). Was yours from one of the collections listed starting on page xxi? I would love to see someone update the rarity listings from RIC based on serious research but even then I can't see how we can know what exists in unpublished collections public or private.

 

I don't think this is rare like Doug said. I have it's brother, RIC VII 32 which is listed in RIC as just as rare, but I think they are in abundance.

CRISPUS
AE3
OBVERSE: D N FL IVL CRISPVS NOB CAES Laureate, draped and cuirassed bust right
REVERSE: PROVIDEN TIAECAESS Jupiter stg. l., chlamys across l. shoulder, leaning on scepter, holding Victory on globe. In field to l., palm branch; in field to r., dot A; in exergue, SMN
Struck at Nicomedia 317 - 320 A.D
2.92g, 18mm
RIC VII 32

 

Not so rare, 17 as it in our database of IV/V century :
http://www.nummus-bible-database.co...47&nombreResultats=20&btRechercher=Rechercher

 

I've just acquired this Roman coin which I consider as the rarest among mine. The fact is the giant she-wolf on reverse, suckling Romulus and Remus with 5 dugs or udders. That's the biggest I've ever seen. She could suckle all Rome.. The coin weighs 13.8 g. Please post your comment. Thanks.

 

Apparently I was mistaken.

 

That is quite a site! I researched a few of my coins and found the engine worked well for me. I do not read French well enough to make use of the Forums and other features but the coin photos are universal. I failed to find a place to submit images you are missing. Do you receive outside submissions?

 

As Doug indicated, that is an oustanding tool. And I think I must stand corrected. My Crispus, RIC 32, is not so rare, while swish 513's RIC 31 appears much more so. My apologies to swish.

 

My coin, as I previously understood, was 3. Then the link. 1 of the 3, I believe, is 1 of the 3 I had researched. So, it's now 5 or 6 known. Still rare, IMO, unless 5 is scarce. At any rate, the coin I posted is still my rarest, unless 20 are proven to exist. Then I will show a Civil War Token as my rarest.

 

I still need to clean this coin of Crispus that was struck in Arles. It has Mars on reverse. RIC VII - 163. The coin was rated R4. Could you please tell me if it's still so ? Thank you.

 

@dougsmit you seem to be the end all expert, please chime in.

 

Once a coin is an R4 it is always an R4. The problem is that these numbers were never intended to be a count of all coins in existence. They were just a record of coins seen by the authors is a specific list of mostly public collections. The authors could not have foreseen the way the coin collector market would abuse their guide. There has not been a really thorough survey of every collection in the world (impossible!) so the best we have may be the six shown here:
http://www.nummus-bible-database.co...endes=&nombreResultats=10&btRechercher=Search

Of course they don't and can't be expected to have them all. Mine was $12 in 1997. There seems to be enough to cover the demand for them. The reverse type is a bit more in demand than the really common ones but that has little to do with a count of coins and more with the young prince Crispus having a coin that reads 'young prince' in my opinion. Note that all six of the ones in the link are reasonably nice coins while mine has a flat strike making the reverse less detailed and explaining the price I paid. Rarity has a lot less to do with coin prices than does condition.

 

I'm not sure how rare it is, but this was a recent cherrypick - I've found only three examples at CNG, none elsewhere. I'll have to submit it to Wildwinds. Small bronze of Menainon, Sicily with Hermes in petasos, caduceus, two pellets - CNG calls it a sextans in one listing, a hexas in two others. I'm going with hexas on majority vote.

Where the heck is Menainon? Well here is the entry from the Princeton Encyclopedia of Classical Sites. Menainon minted these coins while under Roman rule, c. 200-150 BC. Maybe it's not the rarest, but try and find one! (There are other types from Menainon that seem common, ie. the crossed torch trias.)



Edit: well I did turn one up for sale by FORVM - they call it very rare (and also a hexas). Evidently Meniaon is an accepted alternate spelling.