I received two interesting, low weight, RR bronze coins this week. The coin on the left is a RR Sextans struck over a Neapolis AE 16, Apollo/Man-Headed Bull coin from 250 - 229 BC. the coin on the right is a four dot quadrans. Both coins are low weight. This would normally mean late issues, but the one on the right was probably struck during or just after the second Punic war. I posted more information on the coins on my blog - http://rrdenarius.blogspot.com/ Post your ancient mint "errors".
While researching the overstrike, I found some interesting information about the Man-Headed Bull, river god. the overstrike is similar to the NAC sextans shown below - the understrike is similar to the ACR coin below - The Greek god Acheloos is one attribution of the reverse MHB - http://www.royalathena.com/ The Smithsonian had an excellent write-up on him: Achelous was the god of the most powerfully flowing river in Greece, and so was the chief of all the river gods. He wanted to marry a Greek king's daughter and entered the strength contest for her hand. Unfortunately, Hercules was in the contest also. You can guess who won. The horn Hercules broke off in the contest became the cornucopia, or horn of plenty. http://www.smithsonianeducation.org/educators/lesson_plans/myths/achelous_hercules.html
Wow, rrd => I love those cool over-strikes ... and your new additions are amazingly cool (I'm totally jealous of those sweet additions)
Nice coins! I especially like the sextans. That is a really cool result. I've got a few interesting RR overstrikes myself: Anonymous triens(style of 56/4, but underweight) overstruck on unknown type: Roman Republic Æ Triens(20.5mm, 5.75g), anonymous, after 211 BC. Mint in Southern Italy, Sicily or Sardinia. Helmeted head of Minerva right; above, four pellets / Prow right with flat-topped deck structure; above, ROMA; below, four pellets. Cf. Crawford 56/4. McCabe group H1(halfweight overstrikes) Ex. Vecchi 3, lot 124, September 1996 Anonymous semis(style of 56/3, underweight) overstruck on unknown Roman undertype Roman Republic Æ Semis(24mm, 10.52g, 2h). Anonymous, after 211 BC. Mint in Southern Italy, Sardinia or Sicily. Laureate head of Saturn right, S behind/Prow of galley right, S above, ROMA below. Overstruck on unknown Roman Æ. Cf. Crawford 56/3. McCabe Group H1(Anonymous halfweight overstrikes). Ex. RBW Collection
I received an interesting e-mail on my over strike coin. Clive Stannard noted that many of the under type had chop marks on the obverse. If you look at my coin, it has a facial chop mark that was rubbed out a bit by the next strike. His note is copied below with a link to one of his papers. Hi, In saw your very interesting Roman sextans overstrike on Neapolis on Andrew’s blog, and can give you a little more information. From the patina of this piece, I have no doubt that it comes from the River Liris at Minturnae. For a discussion of the Liri finds, have a look at my presentation: Cyrenaican coin in central Italy (https://www.academia.edu/24070903/Cyrenaican_coin_in_central_Italy). The Neapolitan piece you illustrate is also from the Liri. One of these days I am going to do a paper on a strange phenomenon of this Neapolitan issue from the Liri: many of them have a chop, or cut, across the obverse, never the reverse. Your sextans is over a chopped piece. I attach a file with a number of chopped Neapolitan pieces. Yours (which I have included), is the first time I have seen it overstruck. We can only guess the reason for overstriking. I don’t think it was to demonetise the coins, and doubt that it was to offer them as a sacrifice. My best guess was that it marked them as acceptable in local commerce at some fixed rate. Could you please give me the size and weight of your piece? All the best, Clive
