Box Checking - L. Plautius Plancus Denarius

You know I love yours, @TIF, but just in case you didn't get the memo...

 

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The reverse type is usually as big as the flan, making off-centering often cut off something important like a horse's head, which I think happens more than half the time. In this thread we have been shown excellent examples.

There seem to be two varieties, one with clear snakes at the ears of Medusa (Doug's #2) and those without (Doug's #1 and the OP). This one, and some of the others in this thread, have the snakes.

 

i LOVE that reverse!

 

I agree... awesome subject for the reverse, and well executed. I want this one for my collection.

It is reminiscent of my Etrurian... In fact when I first opened @zumbly 's thread, I thought WOW, he got an Etrurian 20 As!

Etruria, Populonia
3rd Century BCE
Silver 20-Asses (I akin to a Greek Didrachm, Carthage Shekel, or 2 Roman Denarii)
8.1g, ovoid 16.6mm x 20mm
Obv: Facing head of Metus, hair bound with a diadem, X:X below
Rev blank
Sambon 47; HN Italy 152

Metus was the Etrurian name of the similar Greek God Deimos or fear or terror.

 

As mentioned earlier in my shameless effort to get each of you to buy more than one of these coins, there are variations. Banti lists a few legend variations abbreviating the name Plavtivs but many lower grade coins are not terribly clear on the letters so some will be hard to place. More interesting to me is the statement in Banti, "The face can be smiling or sneering." That is a fact. In fact, there are many expressions shown on various dies. The ones with snakes seem to be a bit more bland and less individual than some of the snakeless ones. Some of the snakeless dies have really great faces. My favorite is the sneering monster Banti calls 21/2 (A. M.u.M. 38, 1968 Collez. Voirol n. 230. I would love to have a coin of that die. I, then, would need a nice smiler, a pair with really large and really small Medusa heads and a few (dozen) in between showing the variations available on the coin. Oh, Banti showed 37 coins and seems to have a nice variety so maybe I should not be greedy and want more than that. CRRO shows over 90 with many cuties but failed to change their descriptions to recognize the fact not all have snakes. Maybe they don't need that many???
http://numismatics.org/crro/results?q=453

 

As great as that link is, it's probably the 67 shown in CNG's sale archives that are the ones we're likely to see come back onto the market. And for those of us still shopping for one (or two or more ), it shows that while the assortment of smilers and sneerers, big heads and small heads will come up if one is patient, you'll still have a problem if you want a decent reverse to go along with the Medusa. A troublesome issue to collect!

 

How many dies are known?

 

Crawford recorded 195 obverse dies and 217 reverse dies (all varieties lumped together in these numbers).

 

Sorry for the bump, but the red hue of the original pictures were so wrong that I just had to take new ones. The colours here are more true to the coin.

 

There was one of these for sale on the bay, but it was in such poor condition, I had to pass on it. One of these days......

BTW, nice re-shoot.

 

Thanks. That's what I say about that Fonteius galley denarius with the jugate heads... One of these days... I'm going to get Bing's. Oops! I mean, one like Bing's.

 

Well, here's a deal for ya. Just like Wimpy in Popeye cartoons, I'll leave my Fonteius to you in my will in exchange for your Plautius Plancus now.