A coin type I wanted for a while arrived last week, a cast Dupondius. It is quite a hand full. My cast coins are normally better in hand than in picture. The first two pictures were taken in the Fedex parking lot. I could not wait to send pics to a few friends. Anonymous. Æ Aes Grave Dupondius Circa 230-220 BC, Semi-Libral standard. Volaterrae (Etruria) mint. Obv - Janiform head of Culsans, wearing pointed petasus Rev - Club; I I (mark of value) across field; ethnic around velaθri. Sellers of this coin do not agree if the small end of the club should point up or down. I show the small end up because the city name, in retrograde, can be read counter clockwise from 5 o'clock this way. reverse Etruscan retrograde legend - FEΛA-OΔI Above. the representation of the retrograde genitive in Etruscan characters. Thurlow & Vecchi 85 (9 specimens, the number recorded in Haeberlin); Haeberlin: pg 241 - 249; Table 83, 1-6 *see note below* HN Italy 109a Sydenham Aes Grave 305, not in Sydenham collection auction HN Italy 109a Catalogue of Greek Coins, Italy, pg 10, #1; Etruria, Volaterre, Class II, club on reverse Liv Yarrow (a newly elected ANS fellow) wrote about the Janus head on this coin. Etruria, Volaterrae, Dupondius circa 225-215, æ 259.55 g. Janiform head, wearing pointed cap. Rev. FELAQRI Club; on either side, mark of value II. H. pl. 83, 1. Syd. 305. TV 85. Ex CNG 29, The Thurlow collection, 1992, 69 and NAC 10, 1997, 287 sales. RRC 348/6; – Liv Mariah Yarrow (livyarrow.org) Dr Yarrow also talks about this series and speculates it could be 10 uncia per As because the semis of this series uses a C as the mark of value. Oval Series Denomination Markers – Liv Mariah Yarrow (livyarrow.org) Note: In his book, Aes Grave ..., E. J. Haeberlin reported most minor coins in a series in terms of 12 Uncia per As. With some series, Apulia, he reported equivalent Asses in terms of 10 (Luceria & Hatria) and / or 12 Uncia per As. CNG in Triton V sold one of these and reported: Although there was a hoard of aes grave from Volaterrae dispersed by Münzen und Medaillen in the early 1970s, apparently there were not many examples of this type as the number of extant specimens in 1979 when Thurlow and Vecchi published their work was only nine.Does anyone here have access to the M&M catalogue mentioned above?
@rrdenarius That's a beautiful Aes Grave. It's amazing, how different the color appears, in the different lighting environments. The patina on the coin, really shows how old the coin is. The Etruscan history is quite fascinating.
What an incredible piece! I sure do love it when you share these I've been trying to get a second one but the folks that collect these are usually willing to sell their left arms (or at least pay what I assume a left arm is worth).
Those are definitely not a dime-a-dozen! Congratulations on a tremendous acquisition. I can never wrap my head around the impracticality of using aes grave in commerce, anymore than I can wrap my head around the use of lilliputian silver fractionals.
