How the blazes does anyone ever tell? I see some straight lines in this image that to me are indicative of human interaction with the metal, but... ? (Don't even get me started on Aes rude. Hoo boy. I don't collect brownish-green rocks. LOL)
Be careful, ensure you acquire from trusted and reputable Sellers, do research. My AES FORMATUM: Oscan-Latin Aes Formatum scallop shell with Ribs 4th BCE Oscan-Latin Aes Formatum shell 25mm 12.8g ITALIA Aes Formatum AE Bronze Ax Head ca 5th-4th C BCE sextans size 44.8mm 56g
All the Aes rude and a lot of the Aes formatum have always looked like rocks to me, which is probably why I've never collected any. Really makes you appreciate the relative simplicity that is coinage.
Aes Rude and Formatum come in a variety of shapes and sizes. Your piece looks like a bronze cake that was cut / shaped into a bar of about 5 Roman pounds (Asses). Unless you have a find spot, or a dealer who feels good about where it was found, you can not positively confirm how or when it was used. Your piece looks like it was cleaned a bit more than mine, but that is ok. Sear shows a brite metal example in his book on RR money. Most of the big pieces I have came with a good coating of dirt. Cast bronze was used as money and to make tools and decorative items in Central Italy before Rome was founded (or started producing coins). Most of the items I have seen are dated 1000 to 300 BC. I have several pieces I call Aes something or other. This one is a piece of a circular cake. It was broken into a more manageable size. This is about 14 US pounds of cast bronze, or about a week's pay for a Roman soldier in 400 BC. Bronze shells come in lots of sizes. Some think they could have been used as small change, scale weights or votive items. This piece was sold as Aes Formatum. There are similar pieces in books on cast bronze. Some early bars had fish bone or dry branch marks. You can see a few tools in this box of cast bronze: plumb bob, knife piece, ax, scale weight. The two large shells could have been votive items.
It certainly looks like it could be half of a pancake formatum. Mine is 140mm and 3100 grams, so I would expect yours to be 120+ mm on the longest side. Haeberlin is a good reference for these.
One question, what is the value of my Aes Signatum, posted here at the beginning of this topic ? I thank you in advance . Ivo
Glad you resurrected this thread.. only for the fact I chuckled reading @lordmarcovan 's "How the blazes does anyone ever tell?"...
