Newp: Italian "small change" imitative semis, ex Stevex6 Collection

This week I brought home yet another of the coins I really admired from the magnificent collection formed by our friend @stevex6 . This bronze semis with a dolphin symbol on the reverse is an interesting example of an imitation that was likely minted and circulated in Italy, right alongside official Roman issues during the first century B.C. due to a shortage of official coinage.

The last half of the second Century B.C. saw the Roman Republic issuing limited amounts of bronze and while there were a few large issues during the first two decades of the first century, bronze coinage stopped altogether with an issue of Sulla in 82 B.C. and did not resume until the 40s B.C. with issued minted under Sulla and Pompey. While the government and wealthier individuals of Roman society could function on denarii alone, bronze small change was an important part of the day-to-day transactions of regular people throughout Italy and so to fill this century long gap of limited issues of bronze, many types of bronzes were minted across Italy, some of which imitated Roman prow bronzes that were in common circulation and many of which copied symbols from existing bronze series such as the dolphin on this coin. There's no evidence that Rome had laws against counterfeiting or private minting of bronze like they had for gold and silver, so while it's impossible to tell whether or not these coins were officially sanctioned in any way, they were almost certainly tolerated and in truth the Roman government was probably happy that someone was picking up the slack as it left even less pressure on them to mint bronze, which was expensive and served very little purpose for the government itself which generally would have made its transactions entirely in precious metal coinage.

As far as this type in particular, while it copies the basic types of the Roman semis, it isn't exactly imitating a specific Roman type as there are no known official semisses with a dolphin to right of prow: the Crawford 80 series contains other denominations with a dolphin to the right of the prow, and the Crawford 160 series contains a semis with a dolphin above the prow, but neither contains a semis similar to this one. Most likely, this was just a combination of combining an existing set of devices with an existing symbol. Because of the existing coins with a dolphin symbol, this type is actually commonly mistaken for an official Roman coin and the first edition of BMC RR listed this type as an official Roman type in the appendix at the end of Volume II and this coin is actually an obverse die match to the BM coin. It's easy to see why one might think this is official, but when comparing with official Roman bronzes it quickly becomes apparent that the style is divergent from official coins struck at a similar weight standard and in more recent editions of BMC RR, the BM has updated their attribution and cataloged their coin as an imitation as well.



Imitations of Roman Republic coinage, Italy, Æ Semis(5.96g, 21mm). 1st century B.C., Italian mint. Laureate head of Saturn right, S behind/Prow of galley right; above, S; to right, dolphin below, ROMA. Cf. Crawford, “Unoffical imitations and small change under the Roman Republic,” AIIN 29(1982), 66; cf. BMC RR(1910 ed) vol II, p. 588, 7 = BM 1906,1103.2817(same obverse die)

Ex @stevex6 Collection, ex CNG e-auction 295, 1/3/2013 lot 368

As always, please post anything relevant. Also, I'd like to give a special thanks to @Carausius who helped me find the Crawford paper on these bronze imitations which shed some light on this fascinating phenomenon.

 

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Nice addition!

 

I miss stevex6

 

I do too. He made this place a lot more fun and interesting.

 

Very nice write-up Sporky! Great choice snaring that Semis fro Steve!

Here are some Semis:

RR Anon AE Semis Rome after 211 BCE Laureate hd Saturn r S - Prow r S ROMA 19.3g 26mm Craw 56-3


Probly Imative:

RR Anon AE Semis 211-207 BC Saturn S Prow ROMA Sear 766 Cawr 56-3

Funky:

RR Prv Macedon Amphipolis AE Semis 187-131 BC Zeus Prow giraffe shape SNG Cop 69

Iberia:
Possibly when Sertorius was occupying Osca? (Cool)

Spain Osca Æ Semis 25mm 8.0g 1st C BCE Bearded male hd R Horseman galloping R holding spear star SNG Cop 325 Burgos 1918

 

I will keep my eye out for one of these. In the meantime, here's the Spanish imitation I snagged from a junk box:

 

This is a very cool one too. I've got a Spanish imitation as well but I'd love to find one like this one of these days.

 

I have a couple of Spanish semis. These came as a two coin lot. The A on the left one looks like a student learning letters on a chalk board.

 

That left one may be a double die match with mine?