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Message:: [QUOTE="Calpurnia, post: 1551025, member: 35419"][ATTACH=CONFIG]208556[/ATTACH][ATTACH=CONFIG]208559[/ATTACH] I like Roman Republican denarii, although I have only about a dozen. This one was authorized by C Calpurnius Piso L F Frugi about 67 b c I like it for these reasons: 1. As are almost all RR denarii, it is almost pure silver. 2. It has a very artistic picture of Apollo on the obverse and in high relief. The obverses of his coins had just about the highest relief of any RR denarii and in fact the reverses were often cupped to enhance the obverses. 3. On the reverse, it has a rider on a horse which recalls the Ludi Apollinares (the Games of Apollo), which one of his ancestors helped start about 211 b c. 4. This coin is a fine example of control marks on RR denarii.  On the left field of the Obv. is a symbol of a Bee, and on the upper field of the reverse is the letter B.  Control marks were an attempt to track dies. This issue has almost 500  combinations of Obv and Rev control symbols, different for each die. This means that my coin is the only combinations of dies out of almost 500 that has the Bee and letter B combination, which makes it rather Rare(in the sense of very few known but not worth any more than any common denarii, since most collectors care little for such minor variations.) 5. It has a[/QUOTE]