Coins halved in antiquity

Coins come in a range of denominations, but if the value of a coin you have is too high for the purchase you intend, what can you do?

Cut it in half!

I have seen halved late Roman AE from Spain. Here is an unusual halved coin from Chios, Ionia, attributed to the second century.


Ionia, Chios.
31 mm. Halved in antiquity.
Sphinx right
Time of Trajan or Hadrian (98-138). AE Triassarion.
Obv: ΤΡΙΑ ΑССΑΡΙΑ [Much of it is off this half flan]. Sphinx seated right, resting forepaw upon prow to right.
Rev: Asklepios on right [off the flan], leaning upon serpent-entwined staff, and Dionysios, pouring cantharus and holding thyrsus, standing facing; altar between them; star in exergue.
cf RPC III 1907. The halved coin has far more lettering, so the RPC number is not right. It is much like Hunter 221.6284 which, however, has bad style.

Show us a coin halved in antiquity!

 

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ARAB-BYZANTINE. Early Caliphate (636-660). Imitation of a Follis of Heraclius (610-641).

Obverse: Heraclius in the middle; to left, Martina; to right, Heraclius Constantine; each standing facing, wearing chlamys and crown cruciger; staff cruciger in between.


Reverse: Large M between A/N/N/O and date; above, cross; below, A; in exergue, (Θ)ECP.

Reference: Cf. Foss, Arab-Byzantine Coins, 3-4 (mint; officina); cf. Sear 825 (for original).

Weight: 5,32g Diameter: 23mm Condition: Very Fine

These coins are the earliest coins of the first Islamic Caliphate - after conquering the Byzantine Middle East, they issued coins in the corrupted style of Byzantine folli (especially of Constans II). These circulates for about a few decades, until the end of the 7th century.

This coin isn’t exactly halved, but it has sharp edges from the flan having been cut. Patina is similar on the cut surfaces and rest of the coin.

 

I have a halved (actually, closer to 1/3) Parthian drachm of Mithradates I (c.171-138 BC):

It's a fairly rare coin type, struck in Seleukia-on-the-Tigris to commemorate Mithradates' conquest of the city. Interestingly, this is the only cut Parthian coin I have ever seen. My original write-up is here: https://www.cointalk.com/threads/parthian-fractional-silver-the-hard-way.337536/#post-3493629

 

I do not personally own any halved coins, but I happen to know a little bit about this phenomenon.

Prior to coinage becoming widespread, many cultures bartered with boullion. As needed, you could snip off a piece to pay someone. There were lots of formats for this, but rings are convenient to carry around and do double duty as a statement about your personal wealth. Compare with Chinese knife money or Thracian 'dolphin money' (most adorable format IMO), and the ring seems more easily cut - and they seemingly did it a lot.

Thracian dolphin money are prone to 'false' cuts, because the casting process would often snap off the tips of their tails, which gives the impression of a deliberate break. Apparently they would cast them in a tree-shape with the dolphins connected by the tail to the sprue.



Example, from Marc Breitsprecher. Sadly not mine.
https://mrbcoins.com/cgi-bin/category.pl?id=79

Presumably cutting coins it grew directly out of this earlier boullion economy, and just persisted when denominational coin exchanging wasn't convenient.

Cuts are just fun. Gets you thinking about what the coin bought. And where the missing piece went!

 

Welcome to the forum! Just fyi, in English it's spelled "bullion." Boullion (more properly bouillon) is a kind of broth or soup!

 

Nice example of an Arab/Byz coin I love these coins. They were issued in "proof", only to facilitate trade in the conquered regions.

I am gradually, and in some cases quickly sizing down my non Byz stuff to concentrate more on my Byzantine, Arab/Byzantine, and other related coinage
of necessity in the period up to the monetary reform of the Umayyad Caliphate under Abd-Al-Malik in 702 AD, 86 AH.

I recently identified three different coins that share the same obverse die in various states of wear. Fun stuff.

 

Haha, whoops - good eye!

And thank you for the greeting - what could be more welcoming than unexpected soup.

 

Velkommen til forumet!

 

What a fantastic quote from Ed.Burke. Quite applicable to the times. Regarding the boullion note, its French, the two ll's would be pronounce with a Y sound: bouyion.
We have taken a lot of "foreign" words into our language. "It's a Good Thing"

Have a great day y'all.

 

Not quite ancient, but my favourite halved coin is this one of Harold II, loser at the Battle of Hastings:

I wouldn't have a coin of his if somebody hadn't thought to turn it into a halfpenny.

 

Yes. This became the way of trading for things worth less than a fifth of a sheep from Saxon times until Edward I introduced a proper halfpenny.

Since a fifth of a sheep is still quite expensive, I rely on cut coinage for much of my late Saxon-Norman-Plantagenet collection - I have cut halfpennies for Aethelstan, Henry I, Stephen, Henry II, Richard I, John (a cut farthing), Henry III…

Offa Light Coinage Cut Halfpenny, 780-792


London. Silver, 16mm, 0.43g. Moneyer Aethelweald (S 904).

 

Roman As cut in Half to make a Semis... Or a Half-As...

RI Augustus 27 BCE-14CE AE As cut made into a Semis Spain Celsa Mint 29mm 5.0g Laureate Augustus - Bull RPC271 Cut in ancient times to make change

 

This appears to be an attempted cut... maybe he or she decided to buy both chickens...


LUCANIA. PAESTUM (POSEIDONEIA).
SECOND PUNIC WAR Æ Sextans / DOLPHIN
Attribution: Crawford 4/1
Date: 218-201 BC
Obverse: Wreathed head of Poseidon right, two pellets behind
Reverse: ΠAIST, Dolphin right, two pellets above
Size: 19.97 mm
Weight: 6.82 grams
Description: Old mark across the coin almost as if it was meant to be cut for change
Ex: Marc Breitsprecher

 

I wanted the halved AR Shekel below not only because I love the type (and the controversies over its interpretation) and knew I'd never get a full one in this condition, but also because, when I saw the weight (4.09g), I was curious about something....

The Question

Could it have been halved, not simply for change, but for currency conversion?

It's just a speculation, likely mistaken, but I've nicknamed it my "Punic Drachm" or "Hannibal Denarius" (for those who believe he's portrayed on the obverse). Despite being cut, it's a favorite of mine. (Really, I like the irony of the phrase "Hannibal Denarius," even if it may be unrealistic on a couple different levels.)


Coin-in-hand video: https://imgur.com/gallery/R9ycdq1

Measurements for my remaining "half": 4.09 g, 13mm X 22mm, 11h die axis.

I calculated that it represents about 61.5% of the original mass (assuming constant surface area to volume). The original would've weighed about 6.65 g (a bit on the light side for the standard 7.2 g Shekel). The missing "half" would've weighed somewhere around 2.56 g.

Once the 2nd Punic War ended, and Spain returned to Roman influence, could someone have been dividing 7.2g-average Punic AR Shekels into roughly 4g Denarii-Drachms & 3g Victoriatus-Hemidrachms-Tetrobols (or something along those lines)?


The Cut Itself

The obverse portrait was carefully preserved, the angle of the cut, diagonal from 6h to 1h, was chosen to maximize the amount of the face retained (and forepart of horse on the reverse). If it had been cut along the vertical axis, as is traditionally done on evenly halved coins, or parallel with it but shifted to the right, a segment of the upper portrait would have been sacrificed (including the distinctive sideburns). Cutting vertically, but shifted left, would have left a sliver of the face on the smaller segment.

The cut was made by placing the chisel on the front of the coin, just behind the face, and chopping at a backward angle away from the face. It was halved in a single stroked, followed by manually separating the thin sections that weren't completely severed (near the center and ~6h).

Retaining the face not only would make it more recognizable as having once been a Shekel (and thus of the same quality silver), but would've been more aesthetically appealing for the users (which we know from other evidence people did care about). I don't know the fate of the smaller piece, but, of the two, at least this one was preserved rather than melted.


Comparanda

There's only so much you can say about a single piece of datum. So I looked for others and found my coin's "companions" in CNG's prior sales. (I couldn't find any others in ACSearch, but they may be around.)

Mine was the last of five such examples sold by CNG in 2011 (I bought it later at CNG EA 477, Lot 1 in September 2020), so I would guess they were all from a single find/hoard.

I didn't see anything too obvious to the distribution of weights. In order of sale:

5.55g, 3.51g, 3.93g, 3.09g, 4.09g (my specimen).​

But others who know this region/period better might see something. (Including randomness, which is fine, it's still been interesting.)

Here are the other four (probably not to a consistent scale):

249, Lot: 1. Closing Feb 09, 2011 at 10:00:20 AM ET. SPAIN, Punic Spain. Circa 237-209 BC. AR Shekel (22mm, 5.55 g, 12h).

259, Lot: 1. Closing Jul 06, 2011 at 10:00:20 AM ET. SPAIN, Punic Spain. Circa 237-209 BC. AR Shekel (21mm, 3.51 g, 1h).

259, Lot: 2. Closing Jul 06, 2011 at 10:00:40 AM ET. SPAIN, Punic Spain. Circa 237-209 BC. AR Shekel (19mm, 3.93 g, 12h).

259, Lot: 3. Closing Jul 06, 2011 at 10:01:00 AM ET. SPAIN, Punic Spain. Circa 237-209 BC. AR Shekel (21mm, 3.09 g, 6h).
​

A couple relevant articles on contemporary Hacksilber and cut coins (please share if you know anything else relevant)

Andrew McCabe. 2015. “Hoard of Cut Roman Denarii from the Second Punic War,” pp. 221-238 in Fides (Essay RBW).

Peter G. van Alfen, Martín Almagro-Gorbea and Pere Pau Ripollès. 2008. "A New Celtiberian Hacksilber Hoard, c. 200 BCE," American Journal of Numismatics 20: pp. 265-293.

 

...badum tish!...

 

Nice writeup, thank you. I also speculated the same on the 1/2 Shekels of Haanbal’s occupation of Southern Italia…

CARTHAGE OCCUPYING BRUTTIUM


Bruttium Carthage occup 2nd Punic War AR Half-Shekel (approx Drachm / Denarius) 216-211 Tanit Horse SOLAR-O HN Italy 2016 SNG Cop 361-3



Bruttium Carthage occup 2nd Punic War AR Half-Shekel (approx Drachm / Denarius) 216-211 Tanit Horse SOLARdisc HN Italy 2016

 

Goes to show that in ancient times half an As is better than no As!

 

I have a few broken / cut coins. My only Julius Caesar portraits are cut coins.


I have some cut RR Asses I show folks who have not held an ancient coin.

My most recent broken / cut coin is thunderbolt / club cast coin, upper left below. I have another unbroken one. They are from different series and the broken coin weighs about twice what the whole coin weighs. You can compare the thickness of the coins in the last picture.

 

Hi All,

A classic.



COMMENTS: RPC dates this issue to ca. 10-14 CE.
A popular coin from the town now called Nîmes (south of France). The Celator Vol.10, No.9, Sep 1996 contains a long article on this coin, to which Pierre Monnzey commented in the Celator's next issue. The town of Nîmes has preserved the crocodile chained to a tree as its coat of arms. As this town was created for former legioners having fought in Egypt, the symbol of the chained crocodile was intended to remind them of the conquest of Egypt.

Marcus Vipsanius Agrippa was born in 63 BCE and was a close friend of Augustus from boyhood. A renowned commander by both land and sea, he was destined by Augustus to succeed him but he predeceased the emperor in 12 BCE. It has been written of Agrippa that "he is the supreme example in history of a man of the first order whom loyalty constrained to take the second place."

- Broucheion