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<p>[QUOTE="Fugio1, post: 4621159, member: 89970"]Yes, kind of. As with most, probably all ancient silver and bronze coins, individual coins were almost certainly never weighed. This would have seriously impacted throughput. They were weighed at some quantity, perhaps a pound or greater with a target number of flans per the weight. I recently examined a hoard of several hundred early victoriatii and found that coins of the same issue varied significantly. The weight of your coin is on the high side of the range I found with a low of about 2.5g. to a high of 3.8g.</p><p><br /></p><p>The aim weight over time did go down. It is no accident that the Victoriatus weight was initially equivalent to that of the Greek drachm which was widely used for trade throughout the Mediterranean. But the weight of the Denarius and the Victoriatus were both slightly reduced near the end or shortly after the close of the 2nd Punic war. Cr. 166/1, the latest victoriatus issue was considerably lighter with an aim weight of about 2.7 g. Because the weight reductions of the two denominations seem to coincide, the Victoriatus is traditionally regarded as part of the denarius system. Interestingly the two denominations did not apparently circulate together. Denarius hoards rarely include victoriatii and victoriatus hoards rarely include denarii.</p><p><br /></p><p>Here is a pic of a Crawford 44/1 in my collection, 3.23 g. As [USER=74282]@red_spork[/USER] suggested, the RRC 44 coins typically display a rather primitive rendering of the wing of Victory. This is one of the exceptions where the wing is engraved in a more refined way:</p><p>[ATTACH=full]1144155[/ATTACH][/QUOTE]</p><p><br /></p>
[QUOTE="Fugio1, post: 4621159, member: 89970"]Yes, kind of. As with most, probably all ancient silver and bronze coins, individual coins were almost certainly never weighed. This would have seriously impacted throughput. They were weighed at some quantity, perhaps a pound or greater with a target number of flans per the weight. I recently examined a hoard of several hundred early victoriatii and found that coins of the same issue varied significantly. The weight of your coin is on the high side of the range I found with a low of about 2.5g. to a high of 3.8g. The aim weight over time did go down. It is no accident that the Victoriatus weight was initially equivalent to that of the Greek drachm which was widely used for trade throughout the Mediterranean. But the weight of the Denarius and the Victoriatus were both slightly reduced near the end or shortly after the close of the 2nd Punic war. Cr. 166/1, the latest victoriatus issue was considerably lighter with an aim weight of about 2.7 g. Because the weight reductions of the two denominations seem to coincide, the Victoriatus is traditionally regarded as part of the denarius system. Interestingly the two denominations did not apparently circulate together. Denarius hoards rarely include victoriatii and victoriatus hoards rarely include denarii. Here is a pic of a Crawford 44/1 in my collection, 3.23 g. As [USER=74282]@red_spork[/USER] suggested, the RRC 44 coins typically display a rather primitive rendering of the wing of Victory. This is one of the exceptions where the wing is engraved in a more refined way: [ATTACH=full]1144155[/ATTACH][/QUOTE]
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