Cast Bronze Sextans, AES Formatum anyone

A bronze currency bar arrived this week. This one is about the size of a Sextans or 1/6 th of a Roman pound. I have seen them called Aes Rude (that is how this one was advertised), Aes Formatum (or a cast bar with no features) and a currency bar (Italo Vecchi, Italian Cast Coinage). I like the term Aes Formatum best.
The bar is 30 mm wide X 38 mm long X 7 mm thick and weighs 53.3 grams. It was attributed to Latium or Campania in the 5th or 4th century BC.
For comparison, I have shown some other Sextan sized pieces below.

From top left, clockwise:
Broken bronze knife, 49.5 grams
Cast bar with lines, 37.7 grams
Sextans, TV 40, 38.5 grams
Small Ramo Secco bar piece, 48.8 grams - note this is a side view
"New" bar, 53.3 grams


Side views.
The Sextans above is from the Roma / Wheel series of Aes Grave coins, Rome, 269 - 240 BC. The weight range for Asses of this series is 309 to 234 grams. The Sextans Turtle / Wheel coins have a weight range of 62 to 34 grams, mine is on the low side.

The first cast coin series (289 - 245 BC) with the Janus / Mercury As had a weight range of 400 to 240 grams. The Sextans from that series had a weight range of 77 to 42 grams.

There was a lot of variation in the weights of cast coins. I feel comfortable saying this bar at 53.3 grams was about the size of an older Sextans.

 

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interesting.

 

Are your aes really as blue as they appear on my screen?

 

Nice, Gene! I agree, I feel it would be an Aes Formatum. Your Formatum is about the size and weight of my Italia broken Ax Head... And I akin it to a Sextans also.

 

My piece of an ax head (left) is more like a quadrans, 81 grams. It is ex-McCabe collection!
The one on the right was described as a gouge -
BRONZE AGE SOCKETTED GOUGE, 2nd millennium BC
A European bronze gouge with curved edge, lateral flanges folded over to form a socket. 267 grams, 95mm (3 3/4").

 

I like the socketted gouge... that one is ALMOST an As. Nice on ex-McCabe!

Mine is just a simple broken piece of an Ax Head...
Aes Formatum ITALIA AE Bronze Ax Head ca 5th-4th C BCE 44-8mm 56g

 

Short answer, no. In room light I do not see much blue.
I am still working through how to take pictures with my new camera. I bought two new LED lights (suggested by someone who photographs coins). Under the LED lights, I see lots of blue on the knife and some on the other pieces. I have a light that needs a stand built. It is 90+ CRI and 5000 K, I hope that is enough to give me better pictures.

 

When @Carausius asked about the blue, I noticed your skin tone did not look right in the pics, and figgered it was your lighting. But the BLUE is pretty cool!

 

What color is your background paper? If you set the camera to auto everything it will try to make everything neutral. If your background is yellow, it will add blue to correct it. That is why we suggest using manual settings for everything and controlling things like color balance rather than relying on the camera program which was not done with coins in mind.

 

How are these IDed and confirmed as Roman Ae cast currency bars and not just some hunk of bronze?

 

Cool collection !!

I still haven't acquired any yet....but there's always tomorrow (or is there?)

 

Saw this post and thought I had one, looked around and dug this up from the closet


This weighs 3110g or 9.5 liberals. Haeberlin #7 commonly referred to as 'pancake Formatum'.

 

Woah! That's interesting. Do you think that blue patina is real? I have no idea, but it sure is pretty.

 

The lighting is bad(hasty photo), It is a gray color exposing the bronze where the find dirt was removed during shipping. Typically you will see dealers selling pieces around 50g or so, this is where those pieces come from. Years ago I asked for a specific gravity test on a piece that fell off and it came back in the low 7's from the university of Colorado. I should mention the widest past is 130mm. Hard to date these, but probably around 400BC - the precursor to coinage!

 

The precursor to Roman coinage, just to clarify . Greek and some eastern locales struck their first "true" coins in the 7th century BCE.

 

Yes that is what I meant, thank you for the correction TIF.

 

I would have no idea what these are, are they considered currency?

 

Gold and silver were scarce in the Italian peninsula, so bronze was used to make transactions. So they were considered Italic bronze currency. If you think about it makes sense because the bronze was valuable for tool and weapons production. As I wrote earlier these are usually found cut into pieces
http://cngcoins.com/Coin.aspx?CoinID=79320 and possibly traded to make a smaller bronze implement, but that is only speculation on my part. If I remember correctly AES Rude came first, followed my Formatum, and ended with Signatum. It would have been maybe a hundred years after the introduction of Signatum that the first Roman coinage would have been minted. I think the first grave's came around 270 BC but others can probably give a better date?

 

I bought a new light for photographing coins. OK, I know not everyone calls these coins, but maybe pre-money is close enough. The pictures above were made with LED lights purchased on line. They were recommended by several folks, but took BLUE pics. The knife piece had spots that almost glowed blue.
The pictures below were taken with a CREE "True and Natural" LED 6" light:
CRI = 90+
Light Appearance = 5,000 K
Watts = 12.5


I used a dimmer switch to reduce the intensity of the top pic. With this light, there are still some blue tints in the knife and the top left bar. I am at a loss to say if the knife has blue tints, or I have transported back to the '70s and someone turned on a black light.

 

I hate to tell you, @rrdenarius , but now they look purple! What color are they in hand?