I won this little beauty at a very good price at the Artemide auction today. I like the finer style that Roma is engraved in on this type. And part of my collection focus is to get as many different fine style types with her depicted as possible. Even though this type is common, finding them nearly fully centered with little wear is extremely difficult. So the very tiny deposits/pits that will be more or less invisible in hand don't bother me at all, as upgrading this one will be very difficult and probably costly I'll also add it was a very interesting auction to follow with some extreme (unique) rarities in the Republican section. M. Cipius M.f. 115-114 BC. AR Denarius (18mm, 3.88 g). Rome mint. Obverse: Helmeted head of Roma right, wearing single drop earring and pendant necklace; X (mark of value) to left, M • CIPI • M • F upward to right. Reverse: Victory driving galloping biga right, holding reins and palm frond; rudder below horses; ROMA in exergue. Reference: Crawford 289/1 "This moneyer has been identified with a certain Cipius, who gave rise to the proverb ‘Non omnibus dormio’, and who was called “the snorer” because he pretended to be asleep in order to facilitate his wife’s acts of adultery."
Very nice pickup! I noticed that they had 3 of the Censorinus denarii from sale L last year. I picked up a pair 15 from this sale last year. They had another pair 15 in this sale. That makes 2 of the 5 known accounted for.
Nice Denarius, @Michael Stolt . Kinda a disgusting thing to have as a legacy! I have a couple... RR Cipius 115-114 BCE Roma X Biga rudder S 166 AUTH Cr 289-1 RR Cipius 115-114 BCE Roma X Biga rudder S 166 AUTH Cr 289-1 - JA
Great pick-up. The details on your coin are super. I have a couple. One is a brockage. The Artemide auction had several nice coins in the RR section. I wonder who bought the C Licinius Lf Macer for big bucks.
The fake Licinius Macer sestertius, you mean. The early Roman coinage Cr.13 obol variety was unquestionably genuine. The Licinius Macer sestertius was a howlingly bad fake which I've made clear to everyone who asked my opinion. Since it hammered at 20k euros, clearly at least two people thought differently.
I've been party to a lot of discussion of this coin. I think it's just barely possible the Artemide coin is ancient, but allow pretty much zero chance that it's Roman. If it's ancient (big big BIG if), I think it must be Celtic; something like this coin of the Atrebates and Regni, with the same general types and module, 1.30g. I have no explanation of the inscription in that case. Much more likely, a forger had a coin like this in mind and created a “rarity” by adding the pseudo-Roman legend. Phil Davis
Hi Andrew! I haven't followed the discussion concerning the Licinia sestertius authenticity. Could you enlighten me on why you consider it to be a forgery please? Not questioning your opinion but as I mentioned I haven't followed the debate.
I haven't publicly listed all the issues with it - and won't here as there's a lot of benefit to fakers to understand what they need to fix next time (if its modern - it might be an old eg 19th century fake). So there's no debate to refer to on CoinTalk. But you can bet there's been a lot of offline chatter among those who understand such coins well - Phil refers above to some of the discussions and there's been others too involving people with different interests (academic)
