A group of aes rude

Discussion in 'Ancient Coins' started by red_spork, Oct 5, 2019.

  1. red_spork

    red_spork Triumvir monetalis

    I purchased this group in a recent CNG e-sale but I'm only just now getting around to sharing them. As a Roman Republic collector, these are an important bookend for my collection. For those who haven't seen or heard of these before, aes rude were the earliest form of money used in Italy as early as circa 800 BC. These were cast lumps of bronze traded by weight in a sort of barter economy. They could of course be traded like money or used as bronze bullion to make any number of items. The majority of known examples have been found on mainland Italy itself, often in hoards and votive deposits alongside aes signatum and aes grave, but they've been found in Sicily and even Croatia which had important economic links with Italy during this time.

    Some sources refer to these as "unformed" or having no particular form but that's not entirely true. When you look at aes rude, it's true that some seem to just be somewhat freely formed, perhaps by dumping molten bronze into water but you see many pieces that seem to have been broken off of ingots or other shaped objects like axe heads. In particular one piece I'll show below seems to have been broken off a small bar-shaped ingot. Others have flat surfaces I believe are tool marks and were likely also cleaved from larger pieces but not as obvious what those larger pieces looked like.

    I've wanted to add a few of these pieces for a while and have studied them to the point that I felt I had a reasonably good eye for what they should look like... But between a lot of pieces that either were old but didn't seem to be aes rude, seemed likely modern or I felt were possibly authentic but sold by sellers that I didn't feel had the right expertise I was just never quite comfortable with what was available on the market. When I saw this group of 5 pieces, ex Andrew McCabe collection and ex RBW collection, and all of which had the sort of shapes and patina I'd seen of known good pieces, I knew I had to have them. Thankfully the group hammered at a relatively low price, around $45 each after buyers fee so not bad at all given the relatively large weight of each piece and especially given the excellent provenance to two collectors whose opinions I greatly respect on these types.

    I couldn't figure out a good way to photograph these with my usual setup so I decided to take a couple big group photos as well as one close up of the middle piece which I think was
    cut off a larger ingot. I've also attached the CNG group lot picture. The weight of each one is between 55g and 95g as labeled in the picture, placing them all in the sextans to quadrans range in terms of weight.

    ObvLabeled.jpg
    IMG_20190926_203633.jpg
    IMG_20190926_203602.jpg
    4520728.jpg

    Italy, anonymous, Æ Aes Rude(55.0g, 55.7g, 69.5g, 80.3g, 95.0g), before 4th century B.C.. Irregular cast bronze with no stamp or mark of value. Vecchi ICC 1
    Ex Andrew McCabe collection, ex RBW collection (before 2010)

    Post any Italian cast aes-whatever bronze you may have or anything relevant.
     
    Last edited: Oct 5, 2019
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  3. Orange Julius

    Orange Julius Well-Known Member

    Here's mine. I bought this piece just to have an example but do not know anything about what the weight would correspond to for value. Any ideas? 20.35 grams.

    AesRude.JPG
     
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  4. Paul M.

    Paul M. Well-Known Member

    Nice! I, too, have wanted an aes rude or 2, but, as @red_spork said, it’s hard to find ones that seem right, and they look ridiculously easy to fake. It hasn’t been a priority for me to add one to my collection just yet, so, as a result, my sole pre-republic Roman coin is a little aes grave uncial that, unfortunately, I don’t have a photo accessible for right now.
     
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  5. Multatuli

    Multatuli Homo numismaticus

    Great acquisitions. For these types of pieces, provenance makes all the difference. 10936086-5C3D-4A6C-BC22-21671EF17920.jpeg
    Bronze Aes Rude, SRCV I 505; Thurlow-Vecchi pl. 2, maximum length 23.5 mm, weight 22.529 g
    I ordered this one few years ago in Forum Ancient Coins.
     
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  6. dougsmit

    dougsmit Member

    Mine is 10.9g. It came to me from a trusted source as being ex. Vecchi 4 Sep 98 lot 555 (part) which suggests it was Aes Rude rather than a piece of any old scrap metal. This is a case where provenance would seem to be a matter of importance.
    r00010bb1834.jpg

    Concerning the pieces with flat surfaces or cut marks, it would seem that the people using this as currency would have no reason to separate out pieces made by dribbling in water from those hacked from old Aes Formatum or recycled from broken tools. I would expect a transaction to have been a matter of weighing out pieces that totaled a desired number and then dividing the last one to make the total come out even.

    I would be interested in the answer to that old question, "How much was it worth?" What could you buy with my 10g piece? I suspect most exchanges involved a basket full of several pounds rather than buying a cup of wine from a street vendor but it always is interesting to understand the place of an item in the economy of its day.
     
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  7. Alegandron

    Alegandron "ΤΩΙ ΚΡΑΤΙΣΤΩΙ..." ΜΕΓΑΣ ΑΛΕΞΑΝΔΡΟΣ, June 323 BCE

    Great find and super price landing those little gems, @red_spork ! Nice job.

    I have the AX HEAD

    [​IMG]
    ITALIA Aes Formatum AE Bronze Ax Head ca 5th-4th C BCE sextans size 44.8mm 56g Sextans size?


    and the AES RUDE
    I believe mine was molten bronze dumped in water process...

    [​IMG]
    Italia Aes Rude - bronze ca 5th-4th Century BCE 29.7mm 32.4g Uncia sized?
     
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  8. red_spork

    red_spork Triumvir monetalis

    I think a Vecchi provenance is probably about as good as it gets for one of these, second only to perhaps Haeberlin. I would have bought an example with such a provenance as well.

    I agree that the people using these probably would not have cared much about the source, as long as the pieces were good bronze and equal to the desired weight that was probably enough. I don't know enough about the Italian economy of this time period to know what if anything could be bought with a 10g piece but I suspect @rrdenarius might if anyone would.
     
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  9. red_spork

    red_spork Triumvir monetalis

    By the way, here's a close up shot of one piece I think might be from a larger piece with a design on it or perhaps I'm just seeing things. There are definitely some depressions on it as can be seen below:
    IMG_20190926_203013.jpg
     
  10. rrdenarius

    rrdenarius non omnibus dormio Supporter

    Aes Rude are like most old stuff. You try to understand what you are buying, read as much as you can and then go for it. I suspect that small aes rude may be easy to fake. I have talked to bronze workers who say they can produce about any patina you want. I have read that the only thing rarer than most cast coins are collectors of cast coins. Most of these are small and not worth enough to mass produce them for the relatively few sales they would generate. As many folks here know, I have a few:
    20190920_104023.jpg
    some ramo secco bar pieces, broken plates, a broken ax, an apostrophe (one of many shapes I have)
    20190920_104031.jpg
    two of the larger pieces

    pic in book.jpg
    this pic shows a RS bar piece ans two small pieces with marks (+ and C), I think the plate is Garrucci

    DSCN1819.JPG
    If I have done the math right, the large pan is one week's pay (21 asses = 6900 grams = 15 US pounds) for a Roman soldier about 400 BC. The small pan is half a day's pay or 1.5 asses.
    http://rrdenarius.blogspot.com/search?updated-max=2019-03-10T14:36:00-07:00&max-results=7
     
  11. Carausius

    Carausius Brother, can you spare a sestertius?

    I know this is like a rorschact test, but turn your fragment 180° right, and the "design" looks like a dolphin. Maybe compare it to currency bars with dolphins of the 4th-3rd century. However, the fabric of your piece seems a bit thin for such bars that I've seen and held. Anyway, fun to ponder.
     
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  12. rrdenarius

    rrdenarius non omnibus dormio Supporter

    I am not an expert, but I have read a bit. I think the older cast bronze pieces came from a time when the Roman economy (especially the rural farms around the cities) had not monetized. Money was used as a store of wealth, a way to pay taxes, something to make offerings to their gods, to allow trade, pay mercenary armies, etc. They did not take an aes rude to market to buy a loaf of bread or a dozen eggs. Rome started paying soldiers because some were loosing their farms / land when fighting for Rome. Livey stated soldiers at Veii in 400 BC were paid with cast copper because coined money had not been introduced.
    I do not have a good source for the 3 As per day pay rate, but I have read it in several places. Doug's 10.9 gram aes rude is 10.9 / 980 = about 1% of a day's pay. A good smithy could turn it into a couple of nails.
    http://www.leaderhome.com/nails.html
     
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  13. Paul M.

    Paul M. Well-Known Member

    Fair point. It's really just a special case of "know the coin or know the dealer." I know that, of course; I just haven't run across an aes rude in the hands of a dealer I know and trust yet at a time when it's been at the top of my mind.

    I have no doubt I'll probably acquire at least a small piece at some point. They're important pieces in numismatic history, and I think anyone who wants their collection to somehow reflect the history of coins, money, and commerce should probably have one. There are even a few on vcoins right now being sold by Forum Ancient Coins, and I'm confident enough in their reputation that even if I somehow ended up with a fake that they'd take it back and refund me.
     
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