DonnaML's Top 12 Roman Republican Coins for 2021

I'll take your Nerva, Cotta, Sufenas, Memmius, Metellus Pius Scipio, and Carisius please.

One of my favourite RRs:

 

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WOWZA! You really know how to get your money's worth out of collecting! Looks like you had a terrific year. I assembled a collage to make it easier for me to remember the group as I pondered favorites.




#2, the P. Nerva voting scene, is an absolutely lovely example of the popular type.

#4, the Cotta Vulcan, is hard to find in "pleasing" grade but you got a nice one.

#7, the Frugi, has a beautiful Apollo.

#9, the Sufenas, wins in the beauty category for this assortment of coins.

#11, the Scipio, is my favorite for the history category, although so many of these (and all Roman Republican coins) are winners in that department .

Congrats on the year!

 

Thanks; that's very kind. I did get a BA in History in college, and have often regretted not going on to graduate school -- whether in history or archaeology or something related -- rather than following in my father's footsteps and going to law school. My primary pastimes of genealogical research and numismatics/collecting antiquities have always been ways of trying to fulfill those interests outside my career. Now that I'm retired, I have more time for both.

 

Wow, thanks, @TIF; I love that collage!

 

I really like all , but if had to take one I will chose #12 the sphinx. Congratulations !

 

@DonnaML , you are a true NUMISMATIST! Unlike me. I am/was an “accumulator.”

 

I'll choose the Denarius showing Pietas and the man carrying his father to escape the eruption (No 3). Note the artistic craft of the engraver. What a fantastic and very fruitful year 2021. Congrats again and again.

 

Please don't sell yourself short. I've seen your website and your coins!

 

My Goodness, what a prodigious post and a loverly Christmas gift. Mikey likes it too!

 

Even more than your coins, the depth of your research and writeup blows me away. Being a huge fan of republican denarii myself I would take them all, with special mention to # 3, 7 and 9

Thank you
Q

 

Your RR list does not disappoint, Donna! Those are all impeccably chosen examples of interesting types. Incredibly hard to pick favorites, but if I had to, I'd go with the eye-pleasing P Nerva, the outstanding Aurelius Cotta, the Sufenas, and the Metellus Scipio. (Damn, I really had to pick the exact same ones as TIF, didn't I )

The Metellus Scipio is on my want list as it'd make a nice companion piece for my Juba I bronze.


NUMIDIAN KINGDOM
AE28. 16.49g, 28.2mm. NUMIDIA, Cirta mint, circa 60-46 BC. Mazard 92; MAA 35; SNG Copenhagen 529. O: Head of Zeus-Ammon right. R: Elephant standing right; Punic inscription SYWB’Y HMMLKT (Juba King) in two lines above.

Your footnotes quoting Rowan makes a comparison between Scipio's elephant denarius and Juba's elephant bronze, but the two allies also had another set of issues with matching types - for Scipio another denarius (Crawford 461/1) and for Juba another bronze (SNG Cop 532), both with the head of the personification of Africa on the obverse. At some point, I'd like to make a set of all four types.

 

Congrats on a great year of collecting. I'm also a fan of RR coins, so like looking at them. I liked 11, 7, 9 best, but all are great.

Roll on more in 2022.

ATB,
Aidan.

 

All absolute fantastic coins, I really can't pick a favorite because I love them all...you definitely have RR down to a fine art and such in-depth research makes your purchases even more interesting, congrats on what looks like a great year of collecting.

 

Thanks, @zumbly. I would love to have an example of the Juba I elephant bronze like yours, to go with the Metellus Scipio. I looked on acsearch and it's clear that they're not inexpensive. This one went for almost $900 in a German auction a few years ago:



Note the traces of cross-hatching on the elephant. It has traditionally been interpreted as armor, although I'm more persuaded by the argument that it's intended to depict the elephant's wrinkled skin.

 

That one of the best examples I've seen, and even then it has considerable wear and has lost all but traces of the reverse legend. I agree about the cross-hatching being the elephant's skin rather than armor. If it were armor on that coin it would be as if the elephant were wearing armored pants! The cross-hatching seen on this figurine found at Pompeii is quite clearly the elephant's skin :
https://www.livius.org/pictures/ita...m-pieces/pompeii-statuette-of-a-war-elephant/

 

That's a truly amazing figurine. Wow.

 

Wow, incredible selection and your write-ups are in a class of their own! My favourites are 2 and 8 for the history depicted and 9 and 11 for aesthetic beauty, and of course the rest are wonderful. Thank you for sharing and congrats on a great year!

 

@DonnaML I just came across this paper by Richard Witschonke, "The use of die marks on Roman Republican coinage", RBN CLVIII, 2012, S. 65-86: https://brooklynsabbatical.files.wordpr ... ks-rbn.pdf

Maybe you already know it; just sharing

 

Thanks; I will take a look at it!

 

I find the argument for Aeneas and Anchises compelling. Here's mine.


M. Herennius, 108-107 BC.
Roman AR Denarius, 3.41 g, 17.4 mm, 3 h.
Rome, 108-107 BC.
Obv: PIETAS, diademed head of Pietas right.
Rev: M • HERENNI, Aeneas carrying his father Anchises, r.; Control-mark L• in lower right field.
Refs: Crawford RRC 308/1b; Sydenham CRR 567a; RSC I Herennia 1a; RCV 185; BMCRR 1272.