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<p>[QUOTE=&quot;red_spork, post: 2979514, member: 74282&quot;]Though I wasn&#039;t quite sure what it was at first, the Spearhead quinarius in the recent Spartan sale stuck out like a sore thumb to me. If you&#039;re not familiar with the style that most spearhead quinarii come in it might seem like there&#039;s nothing special about this otherwise unremarkable quinarius, but if you compare to most results you&#039;ll find online for &quot;spearhead quinarius&quot;(compare with <a href="https://www.acsearch.info/search.html?id=2469217" target="_blank" class="externalLink ProxyLink" data-proxy-href="https://www.acsearch.info/search.html?id=2469217" rel="nofollow">this example</a>) a few differences start to appear. First, whereas the obverse bust style of most spearhead quinarii is very round with a gently curving visor, the visor on this issue is made up of straight lines and Roma&#039;s bust is in a more angular style. Secondly the style of the rendering of ROMA in the exergue of the reverse is completely different, in particular if you look at this coin <a href="https://www.acsearch.info/search.html?id=372772" target="_blank" class="externalLink ProxyLink" data-proxy-href="https://www.acsearch.info/search.html?id=372772" rel="nofollow">as it appeared in NAC Auction R</a>(before a previous owner dropped it, broke a small piece off and created a small hairline crack), you can see that the &quot;A&quot; in ROMA has a straight crossbar whereas the normal style Spearhead quinarii always have the Greek style A with partial diagonal crossbar. All of this suggests to me that this might just be a separate issue from the majority of Spearhead quinarii and if it is, I want to try and understand where this might fit into the bigger picture. I&#039;ll get to my thoughts on that in a moment, but first some background on the various Spearhead coins and where current research places them.</p><p><br /></p><p>While I talk about &quot;the spearhead series&quot; above, Crawford actually defines two separate Spearhead issues: Crawford(Cr.) 83, containing victoriatus(83/1a and 83/1b), denarius(83/2) and quinarius(83/3) denominations, and Crawford 88 containing 60-as gold(88/1), denarius(88/2a and 88/2b), and as through uncia bronzes(88/3 through 88/8). He assigns both series to a mint in Southeast Italy(Apulia), Cr. 83 coming first circa 211 B.C. and Cr. 88 coming later circa 209 B.C.. Interestingly, while the Cr. 88/2 denarii and Cr. 88/3a asses have the spearhead facing to the right, all the other denominations of both Cr. 83 and Cr. 88 have the spearhead facing up. In &quot;Unpublished Roman Republican Bronze Coins&quot; from Essays Hersh, Roberto Russo further breaks down the bronze portion of Cr. 88 into three separate series separated by style and fabric, the first of which(referred to as 88A) he dates to circa 211 B.C. and places in Southeast Italy, the second of which(88B) he dates to circa 195 B.C. and places in Central Italy and the third of which(88C), in which he includes the spearhead-to-the-right asses as well as an unpublished spearhead-to-the-right semis, he dates to circa 185 B.C. and places at the Rome mint. Russo does not discuss the silver at all in this paper, but given that there have now been shown to be at least three Spearhead bronze issues it follows there might be more silver to look for...</p><p><br /></p><p>More recently, Andrew McCabe has pointed out in <a href="https://www.academia.edu/15759112/Andrew_McCabe_Roman_Struck_Bronze_Coinage_in_Apulia_for_INC_Taormina_extended_version" target="_blank" class="externalLink ProxyLink" data-proxy-href="https://www.academia.edu/15759112/Andrew_McCabe_Roman_Struck_Bronze_Coinage_in_Apulia_for_INC_Taormina_extended_version" rel="nofollow">this presentation</a>(a preview of an upcoming paper) given at INC Taormina, that Russo&#039;s &quot;88B&quot; series are actually a stylistic match to the bronzes of the Sardinian praetor issues of circa 211-208 B.C. and further that the Spearhead quinarii(at least those of the normal style...) are actually a stylistic match for the rare series of quinarii of the Sardinian Praetors as well and assigns both the Cr. 83/2 denarii and Cr. 83/3 quinarii and the aformentioned Russo 88B series to this same Sardinian mint. No specific reason is given to the reassignment of the denarii except, I assume, that it seems logical to place them with the quinarii of the same symbol.</p><p><br /></p><p>So where does this leave my quinarius, which is patently not of Sardinian style like most spearhead quinarii? One place we can look for clues is at the bronze unciae of the other spearhead issues as the unciae feature a similar obverse bust and so stylistic comparisons can be made. Comparing with the unciae from Russo&#039;s 88A series from Southeast Italy, I believe the style is a match: in particular the angular shape of the nose, the shape of the helmet and the slightly upward angle of Roma&#039;s gaze. So what we have here, I think, are multiple series of Spearhead quinarii while all spearhead quinarii were previously attributed to Apulia, in reality only a small number, including this one, actually should be.</p><p><br /></p><p>[ATTACH=full]732782[/ATTACH]</p><p>Roman Republic AR quinarius(1.62g, 15mm). Anonymous(Spearhead series), after 212 BC, Apulian(?) mint. Helmeted head of Roma right, V behind / The Dioscuri riding right; below, ROMA and Spearhead. Crawford 83/3; cf. Russo Essays Hersh 48 and group 88A for obverse style</p><p>Ex Pegasi Spartan sale S77, 1/16/2018, lot 185, ex Naville Numismatics 1, ex Naville Numismatics Auction 1, 6/15/2013, lot 62, ex Numismatica Ars Classica Auction R, 5/16/2007, lot 1263</p><p><br /></p><p>I would like to thank Andrew McCabe and Pierluigi Debernardi for their previous work which immensely helped me when researching this coin. Neither of them have proofread or been asked if thry agree with the conclusions drawn above, however Andrew was the first person to point out to me that I should consider the possibility that this piece be placed with the Apulian spearhead series and while researching this coin I also found a previous discussion on the RROME list(<a href="https://groups.yahoo.com/neo/groups/RROME/conversations/topics/3347" target="_blank" class="externalLink ProxyLink" data-proxy-href="https://groups.yahoo.com/neo/groups/RROME/conversations/topics/3347" rel="nofollow">link</a>) where, coincidentally enough, this exact coin was discussed, with Pierluigi confirming my original suspicions that his research has indicated that this was probably a separate issue from the other spearhead quinarii.</p><p><br /></p><p>As always, feel free to share anything relevant or just your own thoughts on the Spearhead series and/or what you think is going on with this odd spearhead quinarius.[/QUOTE]</p><p><br /></p>

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