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<p>[QUOTE=&quot;Alegandron, post: 4766436, member: 51347&quot;]I am not a scholar or a history expert.&nbsp; I just love my Ancient History.&nbsp; I enjoy the Roman Republic.&nbsp; From my readings, I understand Italia, with the mountains and other geographic features, caused areas to be physically very secluded and discrete from each other.&nbsp; Additionally, Italia was precious metal poor, with copper being the only precious metal readily available. Over the Republic&#039;s earlier history, they were very agrarian, so trade was more direct from commodity for commodity.&nbsp; However, transactions would also be performed in like weights of Aes.&nbsp; It started crude with lumps of copper, and moved into cast ingots, then into cast coins (Aes Rude to Aes Signatum / Aes Formatum to Aes Grave).&nbsp; I think Central to Northern Italia, culturally, were in a different World, albeit a reasonably close proximity to to the Greek World.&nbsp; It was not until the Carthage Empire / Punic Wars, when Rome was able to capture and amass large amounts of Silver, from ELSEWHERE, that Rome moved to more sophisticated coinage.</p><p><br /></p><p>Bear in mind that old habits do not die.&nbsp; During the time Rome minted coinage (AR, struck AE, very little gold, etc.), they were still heavily trading and using the old cast and Aes Rude, etc. &quot;coinage&quot; concurrently with the newly minted / stamped / hammered coinage during the 200&#039;s BCE for about a hundred years.</p><p><br /></p><p>[ATTACH=full]1161601[/ATTACH]</p><p>Italia <b>Aes Rude</b>&nbsp; - bronze ca 5th-4th Century BCE 29.7mm 32.4g rough uncia</p><p><br /></p><p>[ATTACH=full]1161602[/ATTACH]</p><p>Oscan-Latin <b>Aes Formatum</b> scallop shell with Ribs 4th BCE</p><p><br /></p><p><br /></p><p>[ATTACH=full]1161603[/ATTACH]</p><p>RR <b>Aes Grave</b> AE Quadrans 269-242 BCE Dog 3 pellets Six spoked wheel 59.8g Craw 24-6a Th-Vecchi 34 ex Sellwood</p><p><br /></p><p><br /></p><p>[ATTACH=full]1161604[/ATTACH]</p><p>RR Anon <b>AR Heavy Denarius</b> -&nbsp; Didrachm 310-300 BCE 7.3g 21mm Mars-Horse <b>FIRST AR Coin of Rome (probly minted in Neapolis)</b> Cr 13-1 Left</p><p><br /></p><p>[ATTACH=full]1161615[/ATTACH]</p><p>RR Anon 265-242 BCE Heavy Denarius / Didrachm Roma-Victory Crawford 22-1 Sear 25 - <b>First Silver coin MINTED at the Rome mint</b>[/QUOTE]</p><p><br /></p>

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