Do any of you RR gurus know what the control mark on this coin is? Something serpentine with what appear to be antennae? Some sort of slug? I know some of these symbols are undecipherable - is this one of them?
I know you checked the regular databases... I was laughing at ACSearch... so many odd-ball control symbols... most of them were unidentifiable, and they were just called "Control Symbol". saw one that looked like an earthworm. My Sear Roman Coins Vol I says nothing about identified control marks. I am going for #2, John: EARTHWORM carrying a spear (militant type) Mine has a basic V, which is dumb, as this is NOT a Quinarius, but a 16-asses Denarius... RR Vibius Pansa 90 BCE AR Den Apollo, control symbol V, Minerva Quadriga Sear 242 Cr 345-5
http://www.venomousreptiles.org/articles/268 maybe the Nose Horned Viper of Europe: purported to be their deadliest
I had no idea Earthworm Jim was so old that he appeared on Roman coinage. You 90's kids remember Jim, right? If you had a Sega, it was this and Mortal Kombat which where the must have video games of the mid-1990s. Here is my coin with an S symbol.
I looked t the 104 Banti illustrations and failed to find anything except the recurring question why I bought that set of books. He lists 15 'incerte' but from the poor photos I'd up that number to about 50. I was going to ask if you had gone through these http://numismatics.org/collection/2002.46.228 but when I started looking at their 300 coins I realized the ANS did not bother to give a word description of the minor types so finding a match means nothing. Is this close but not the die?
I would say serpent - the British Museum has now put their huge collection of Roman Republican coins online, sorted by Crawford number - there are two serpents and a thyrsus - it's not a die match for any of them, but serpent is the only thing that fits in Grueber (they have added a good few coins since 1910). This is hopefully a link to the first serpent, hit next to see the second serpent and next again to see the thyrsus (maybe the die got damaged and the staff bit disappeared!) http://www.britishmuseum.org/resear...blican+Coinage+(1974)/!//!!//!!!/&numpages=12 In case the link doesn't work (it's a bit long!), here are the pics: ATB, Aidan.
The Pansa issues seem to still hold some surprises. I currently have one with an unrecorded reverse control mark. Does anyone put value on that? So far not for me.
Crawford lists control marks for other varieties in the Pansa series (1 and 3), but not this variety (4). On the other hand, he provides a lengthy list of control-symbols for M.Cato, moneyer the year after Pansa (89 BC). That list includes many of the same symbols listed for the other Pansa varieties and also includes "Snake" and "Curled snake". I also checked Babelon and found the following description including list of symbols. How's your French? I'd call it snake/serpent.
On your list of Pansa is a Serpent autour d'un bâton , fits the bill imho. clearly on akeady / Aidan's last denarius pictured. detail Pergamon Tetradrachma
