Denarius Origin X/V/IIS Trios

With two new coins from recent sales by Roma and NAC, I've completed a couple of trio sets of the denarius / quinarius / sestertius. I've shared some of this in previous posts so my apologies for the repetition. These are the anonymous splayed visor issue, Crawford 44, believed to be among the earliest denarii, and which is comprised of several varieties and sub-varieties described in my website on anonymous denarii.

The first set is a group 1 variation. Group 1 has two sub-variations, one with a 2-bar visor on Roma's helmet and the other with a broader head and a 3-bar visor. This is the second variation.

The second "Trio" is group 3 with unbound hair and wing feather sharply bent and pointing straight back or downward. The quinarius was my recent win from NAC 114 to fill out this set.

The last is a sub-variation of group 2. This variety is sometimes found with a small "dot" below the truncation of Roma's neck as seen on the quinarius.
If you have early denarii or fractions, I would like to see and hear about them.

 

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Just beautiful. I'm at a loss of words staring at that beautiful collection of early denarii, quinarii and Ar sestertii. Its just fantastic.

 

Outstanding

 

These are truly wonderful sets, congratulations on completing them! Coins displaying their value are always extra interesting. Were asses the unit of account in this era or was it sestertii then as in later imperial times? Do you happen to have the rest of the contemporary bronze denomination run as well?

 

The marks of value were Asses. I'm afraid my collection contains few bronzes. Not that they are not interesting to me, but my resources have not allowed extending beyond the early RR silver focus.

 

Early RR silver is not a bad focus to have! Those sets really are charming, and denomination runs in general are quite appealing to me. I understand that it was 10 asses/denarius then, but was wondering if you knew the base unit of accounting in the late 3rd century BC, i.e. "Frontinus records a yearly income of 250,000 sesterces from the sale of aqueduct water." It's not an important question but from my position of ignorance the inclination to denominate the coins in asses suggests they may have been the base unit of bookkeeping/accounting.

 

Nice groupings

I will try to focus more on early denarii later this year, I need to complete a full set of high grade 53/2 variations which I know you are very familiar with as I'm using your homepage as a resource to ID them

Here are the two I have so far in the 52/3 series.

1: Anonymous. Ca 210-206 BC, AR Denarius (18mm, 3.86 g, 3h).

2: Anonymous. Ca 210-206 BC. AR Denarius (20mm, 4.65 g, 1h).

 

WOW! AWESOME grouping @Fugio1 ! I am so glad more Republics are being posted. I have the three denominations, but not the focused sets that you have captured. VERY cool!


RR Anon AR Denarius Roma 211-206 BCE ROMA incuse Dioscuri single horn-helmet Sear-- Craw 68-1b SICILY ISSUE RARE (was offered as Craw 44-5)



RR Anon after 211 BCE AR Quinarius 2.12g Helmeted hd Roma - Dioscuri riding Craw 68-2b Sicily issue (was offered as Craw 44-6) RSC 3 ex Clain-Stefanelli



RR AR Sestertius After 211 BCE 12mm 1.0g Rome mint Roma r IIS - Dioscuri riding stars in ex ROMA Sear 46 Craw 44-7 RSC 4

 

@Michael Stolt, FYI, Pierluigi Debernardi and I used an image of your coin in an article on 53/2 in the 2018 Revue Numismatique.

 

Yes, this is because many cataloguers don't look beyond the first anonymous issue in Crawford, or worse, use Spink/Sear Roman Coins and their Values where #38 uses an image of a very nice 53/2 attributed to RRC 44/5. The CRR, BMCRR, and RSC attributions for #38 are wrong as well, and point to three different varieties in those references.

 

Ecellent

 

Steve, your website is wonderful and a really helpful tool. Great coins, too!

Here is what I have so far for Cr. 44. This represents 50% of my gold RR, which isn't my focus.

Anonymous. AV 60 Asses (3.38g, 14.6mm, 6h) 44/2



Anonymous AV 20 Asses (1.12g, 10.6mm, 6h) 44/4
ex Hirsch XIX, Nov 1907 - (iPhone pic, sorry)



Anonymous AR Sestertius (1.24g, 12mm, 3h) 44/7



Anonymous AR Sestertius (1.03g, 11.9mm, 12h) 44/7 Brockage
Ex. RBW & McCabe



This is the only AR Sestertius brockage I've ever seen, but I'm sure there must be others.

 

..just 'wow' and 'beautiful'..

 

Congrats on completing these sets. I don't yet have any full groups but I've got a few solitary coins, the first two from Crawford 44 groups and the third from Crawford 45(that'll be a hard one to complete):

 

Beyond AWESOME! Early RR AV is a target of mine.

 

@Carthago, your focus or not, these are highly impressive gold examples and important parts of the whole story. I only dream of such treasures. Thanks for sharing.

 

Jordan, I think you should try for the next 45/1 denarius to complete your X/V set. They are only going for only about $10K when they do emerge.

Lovely examples. The sestertius is just about a perfect prototype. They are VERY rarely so nice.

 

That's a good question to which I must admit I do not know the answer (but should research). I would speculate that the unit of reckoning in the early RR was the As, as it is the most common "Roman" denomination from the earliest cast coinage through the origin of the denarius. These small silver sestertii were the first emergence of the 1/4 denarius, and they were minted for perhaps a couple of years before being practically abandoned by the Romans for Coinage (some later sestertii issues are known but they are extremely obscure). Perhaps one of our more knowledgeable members can confirm this.

 

Great coins @Fugio1 ! I bookmarked your anonymous denarii website.
@Carthago your 2.5 to 60 As coins are super.

 

Many(probably most) scholars are of the pretty firm belief that at this time the unit of account was the as. Exactly when the unit of account became the sestertius, however is highly debated and is a topic that has been debated over the years much like the date of the introduction of the denarius. Some scholars believe that the sestertius became the unit of reckoning around the time of the retariffing of the denarius to 16 asses circa 141 B.C., others place it much later. I believe Roberto Russo in his paper on the retariffing in Essays Russo places it much later, sometime in the 1st century B.C.. It's a topic I still don't have a firm opinion on myself but it's on the short list of topics I'd like to learn more about in the near future.