An interesting cast bronze quadrans arrived last week. It is from the second series of cast coins issued by Rome in about 270 BC. The weight basis for the series was the as equaled a Roman pound = 334 grams. The coins listed by Haeberline, 163 of them, averaged 84 grams => or an as of 336 grams. The vendor's description: République romaine - Quadran (280-269 av. J.-C.) A/ Cochon à droite trois globules en dessous. (ie - pig R, 3 dots below) R/ Cochon à gauche trois globules en dessous. (ie - pig L, 3 dots below) TTB (I agree it is VF) Crawford - 18.4 Sear - 545 TV - 11 Ae ; 69.36 gr ; 40 mm I add the following references: Sydenham AG - 46 Sydenham - 18, Note that the sale catalog of his collection listed 3 examples. HNI - 282 RBW - 21 Haberline - pg 87 - 88; Table 36 Garrucci - Table XXXIV #4 SNG Cop 432 (this was listed on an old tag sent with the coin) The old tag mentions C. BURGAN, 03-07-92, 530. This sounds like an auction from 1992. Anyone know of this auction? The Sextans & Uncia from the same series -
Very nice coin. With respect to C. Burgan, my library notes indicate that he was an auctioneer/dealer out of Paris whose published lists span the years 1978-2009 and include both fixed price lists and auctions and he likely had a retail operation as well. 3-7-92 likely refers to auction 30, held on July 3, 1992. Unfortunately I don't own any of his catalogs but maybe someone else will.
An interesting, and a bit troubling, piece of information on this coin is the die axis. I looked at other examples of this coin series (Cr 18/1 - 6) on line. All but two of the examples I found have a die axis of 12. That is rotate the coin when holding it at 6 and 12 and the obverse and reverse are the same. My coin is one of the two with a die axis of 6. You can tell on most cast coins because they are not round, or are missing a piece. Should I worry about the coin being a fake? Or, should I call it an almost unique example? (The other coin of this series with a 6 die axis was a pig / pig coin also.)
I don't know what to say about your die axis questions, but I love the type! It looks fine to me but I know very little about these cast bronzes, other than one just like this was #1 on my want list four years ago. I bid aggressively but lost . I saw the coin some time later in a dealer's tray at a Chicago coin show, for double the hammer. Maybe I didn't bid that aggressively after all... or maybe the dealer was unrealistic.
All of those have the characteristic one sprue out and one broken in which must be diagnostic of how they were made. Is anything known about the casting pattern (chain, tree, singly)?
Bidding on Roman and Italia Aes Grave is not pretty anymore. Becoming a battle. I do not think I have bid against Gene, however. But auctions are getting more competitive for these little gems.
Gene's PIG is FANTASTIC! Only animals on my Aes Grave: Dog: RR Aes Grave AE Quadrans Dog 3 pellets Six spoked wheel 59.8g Craw 26-6a Th-Vecchi 34 Frog: Luceria AES Grave Anonymous 217-215 BCE Uncia 7.35g Frog-Corn Ear pellet retrograde L T-V 285 Dolphin: RR Aes Grave Anon 280-276 BCE Triens 46mm 90.3g 9.3mm thick Tbolt-Dolphin Rome Crawford 14-3 T Vecchi 3
