Today the mail brought what I consider an amazing envelope. Amazing not so much for the contents as for the fact that I bought the item from a dealer in France only four days ago. The dealer and the two post offices conspired to give me amazing service. I have another coin enroute from a source on this side of the Atlantic that I hope comes soon but it has already been in the mail twice as long which still could be good service if it comes soon. The coin? This is only my second arrival of 2013 (I don't buy as many as some of you) but, technically speaking, it is only half a coin. It started life as a provincial dupondius for Nemausus (Nimes, France) but was cut in half to make small change (an as). This was commonly done with this issue which showed adversed (back to back) heads of Augustus (shown here) and Agrippa (absent here). The reverse showed a crocodile chained to a palm and commemorated the defeat of Antony and Cleopatra (Egypt = crocodile) by Agrippa and Augustus. This was special in this city since it was founded by veterans of the battle. I suppose you could point out that this coin retains the south end of the north facing crocodile but I wanted it because it had Augustus. The large P under Augustus' chin shows that this coin was from the last (after 10 AD) series of these which were inscribed PP on the obverse unlike the earlier coins. It is a fact that these coins were struck with little regard to die axis so it is possible to get any combination of parts on various coins. There are even some with the entire crocodile (or none of him) on the reverse. It was common practice to cut between the portraits so it is rare to see one with two necks or parts of both portraits. Of course, most of you will want the entire coin but they cost much more than twice the halves in otherwise equal condition. These coins saw a lot of circulation and are not easily found in good condition on both sides and whole. I do have a whole one but the coin still enroute is an upgrade so I'll hold off now and invite others to show their crocs (Whole, half or the rare quarter). Below is my old half featuring Agrippa and the croc jaws. If is from an earlier series without PP.
Pretty interesting history on that coin. I knew that some countries would split paper currency to use but never knew they would do that to coins. The first photo looks like a pretty strong strike. With details like that, I would love to see a whole coin.
I remember you mentioning how the reverse of the coin is still on a flag to this day. I think I read it on the CC forum, could have been here. The top one has nice detail. I had a coin come from france in 4 days too, it floored me. Yet Germany has been an issue lately and now Ukraine is starting to get me nervous as there has been no change to the PO update for over a week now. Seems like our PO is getting worse and worse. Hate to see what happens in the coming months. Maybe I am not to have lucilla/vesta...my third issue with the type for my set. >(
very cool, and very interesting...i had no idea they made change by making a chop. wouldn't that be awesome to find the two halves of the same original coin? does that have anything to do with why byzantine coins have those sharp angles on them sometime, like this one? though they always seem to be trimmed around the edge?
No, those were struck from clipped flans. Doug - that's a rather nice halved dupondius. This is one of the issues that is often found cut for change. I've found that the practice was not nearly as common as most believe.
Interesting background info historically and specifically about this coin! The photographs are amazingly beautiful too.
Hi dougsmit => hey, congrats on finding a fitting-mate for your original half-coin ... they look very happy together
Sometimes we forget that the Byzantines considered the weight of their base metal coins important. They could have melted down old heavy coins but instead they cut flans until they were the new standard weight. There are some issues struck on what appears to be a quarter of an old coin showing two flat sides and one rounded arc. One could make an interesting specialty collection out of coins overstruck on recognizable undertypes. In some issues it is rare to find a coin that is not overstruck and not trimmed. I wonder what they did with all those little scraps since I don't see enough newly cast flans to account for all that metal. Focas year 4 from Constantinople on cut down Maurice Tiberius year 16? also from Constantinople
thanks ds, you answered my next question. here's the revese of the coin i posted above, very overstruck...
That one is not cut, but the Byzantines and the Arab Byzantine definitely used cut coins. In fact, in the late 7th/early 8th centuries they used old large Byzantine coins and quartered them, striking 4 new coins from the old coins. I have many pie shaped coins that you can see the old design under the new. In antiquity, especially in more rural areas, cutting a coin in half was not really considered unusual. Egypt did not really "get" coins when they first started. Imported Athenian tets are frequently found in Egypt cut up, since the Egyptians simply viewed coins as pre weighed bullion, and cut them to make change all of the time. Not until Alexander and Ptolemy started minting "Egyptian" coins did they start to understand its probably better just to make change traditionally, with multiple denominations of coins.
