Interesting published coin

On the face of it, this coin does not seem very special. Not only is it a very common coin of Titus, it has suffered some very obvious damage. However, it is that damage that makes it so interesting.

This coin was a part of the famous metallurgical study by Butcher and Ponting. This coin was once owned by Dr. Jyrki Muona. Dr. Muona loaned the coin to the authors for this study. This coin was also sold by Harlan Berk after the coin was used in the study.

Of course, it is also a Flavian denarius and that alone was interesting to me. However, the provenance made this coin a must have. This coin is proof that a coin does not have to be expensive in order to be very interesting.

My sincere thanks go to Marc Breitsprecher. I have bought from him before and have always been pleased. He is great to deal with.








Titus AR Denarius
(16.98mm 2.65g)
Obv: MP TITVS CAES VESPASIAN AV[G P M], laureate head right
Rev: TR P IX IM[P XV C]OS VIII P P, curule chair
RIC I 108 Rome;
The Metallurgy of the Roman Silver Coinage From the Reform of Nero to the Reform of Trajan, page 356, coin M40 (this coin), 79% silver content
Description: toned VF. One quarter of the coin is cut away so that its metallic composition could be tested. Ex Harlan J Berk with his tag. From the collection of Jyrki Muona, Helsinki, Finland, who loaned 65 coins to Kevin Butcher and Matthew Ponting for metallurgical analysis and inclusion in their important monograph "The Metallurgy of the Roman Silver Coinage From the Reform of Nero to the Reform of Trajan", Cambridge, GB, 2014.
Purchased from Marc Breitsprecher May 2021

 

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Great coin orfew, very interesting piece. I would love to have one from the Butcher and Ponting study.

 

interesting indeed

 

I have an Otho from an earlier work by them - luckily, they only drilled a small hole into the edge of it! Some other coins were butchered in the pursuit of knowledge!

ATB,
Aidan.

 

I’d not like to have, to me is a non collectible.

 

I don’t understand why you posted this moronic nonsense in my thread. I don’t recall asking for your opinion. My post concerned celebrating the addition of this coin to my collection. I did not ask you if it would be welcome in yours. Should I return the favour when you post coins from your collection?

 

It is not your thread, it is a thread of the community and being public you have to accept public opinion. You can consider it without sense, to me it has sense. You have bought a fragment of coin cut in modern time for a metallurgic test, not even an ancient fragment. It is not not collectible it is investigabile to me but only if you make the same kind of test.
Do you want only celebrative post such “wow”, “great”, “beautiful”.

of course you can post what do you prefer about my coins, I’m not touchy, I’m old enough. But if you reply to me in this way, ask yourself why you post coins here.

 

So by Roma's logic, in 1000 years it will be collectable because the cut will be ancient by then.

Nice coin Andrew. I almost bought an Otho from the same study. I'd be happy to have another "this coin" for my collection.

 

of course, let’s talk again about this coin in 3021 AD.

 

Nice addition Andrew. I would like to own a coin from this important work.

For reference, here is the entry for your coin in the Butcher and Ponting book.

 

Thanks David, it is interesting to see the entry from the manuscript.

 

Its still an ancient coin. So by your standards if someone accidently breaks up an Eid Mar denarius its no longer collectable because it was broken up in modern times ?

 

@Yorkshire Are you seriously comparing an EID MAR with this coin?

 

Well you said @Orfew bought a fragment of a coin that was cut in modern times and "it is not collectable" so if an Eid Mar was cut up or missing chunks surely by what you said it would be not collectable to you as well?

 

What a wonderfully interesting piece of ancient and modern history .

 

I wonder why they didn’t take a smaller slice, or a less distracting one. Couldn’t a lateral cut off one side done the trick while preserving some of the appearance?

I dunno. I ain’t no science man

 

I agree the coin have nice pedigree but my opinion : it is terrible to damage a coin this way, even for science. Qué pena !

 

I agree with Roma to some extent. I don't know why they made such a huge cut to test the metal? I know he wanted to test the core but the practice is to make a very tiny hole on the edge of the coin using some drill and test the core metal that way not by cutting away one third of a coin!