Latest Roman Republic

Little by little, I continue to add some Greeks & Roman Republics, areas which I don't buy often.

My latest addition is a Roman Republic I picked up from a recent auction of @John Anthony had that I really liked.

It's also ex @Sallent.

It's also got a fairly nice CircCameo that @lordmarcovan & I are fans of.


A. Postumius A.f. Sp.n. Albinus, (81 B.C.)
AR Denarius
O: HISPAN downward behind, veiled head of Hispania right with disheveled hair.
R: Togate figure standing left, extending hand toward legionary eagle before him, fasces and axe behind, A• / ALBIN / N•S• vertical downward in fields from left to right, POST A•F• in exergue.
Rome Mint
3.9g
19.6mm
Crawford 372/2, Sydenham 746

 

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Wow, @Mat , great Denarius. Both sides are great, and the toning really sets the details off. Oh, and Serratus to boot! Congrats on a great find!

 

Thanks, Brian.

 

Nice, great pick up.

 

Fun. I went to look for mine.

Probly relatives from 50 years earlier...


RR Postumius Albinus 131 BCE obv Roma Apex behind * cross-x mark of value under her chin; rev Mars Driving Quadriga
Sear 128 Craw 252/1

 

Neat coin @Mat! I only have two Republican denarii and one Victoriatus. Posts here tempt me to investigate more. Nice legends and cam.

 

Nice coin @Mat with a great cameo effect, congrats

Q

 

Mat,

Unfortunately this coin is a modern forgery. There are several giveaways.

1 - the pellet on the cheek behind the eye
2 - the edge of the host coin visible on the reverse from 12-4, cutting off the top of the fasces which should extend slightly above the standing figure's head
3 - the serrated edge doesn't look right

I suspect this coin from Jacquier is the host coin used to make the dies that someone then touched up to try to hide his work.



Here is another from the same dies showing the fasces above the figures head and lacking the pellet behind the eye.



Barry Murphy

 

Really? the coin is from Forvm with the Forvm Tag, usually, Joe is good with such things.

 

At least you can get your money back.

I'm 100% certain it's not right.

Barry

 

Well, I bought it off our private auction here on CT and the cosigner, @Sallent bought it off of Forvm, so both of us are gonna have to get refunds from our dealers.

Thank you for your posts

 

@Mat, I need the coin back to get a refund from FORVM. As for your money, please see my PM asking for refund instructions.

 

Thats unfortunate :/

 

Sorry, Mat. Just a bummer.

 

FYI, I believe that your "giveaway" #2 (the fact that "the top of the fasces . . . should extend slightly above the standing figure's head" and doesn't) isn't really a giveaway of forgery. I just finished looking through a couple of hundred examples of different dies for this type depicted in the Schaefer RRDP (see http://numismatics.org/archives/ark:/53695/schaefer.rrdp.b05#schaefer_372-2_b05_p193 ), and it seems to me that in a substantial percentage of the dies, the top of the standing figure's head is above the top of the fasces.

 

That wasn't Barry's point. He shows an example of the same official dies where the fasces extends to at least the head and then explained that the fake dies cut it off prematurely because you can see the outline of the host coin's edge on the fake.

He's talking about this die, not all of them. You should see if RDDP has other examples of this same reverse die with a complete fasces to illustrate his point.

 

Sorry I missed his point. Obviously, I thought he was talking about the type, not the specific die. In terms of looking for other examples of it, you're welcome to do so -- I gave the link -- but I'm not going through all those pages again! My reason for going through them the first time had nothing to do with Barry's point: I was looking for die matches to a different example entirely, and the variations in relative heights of the figure and the fasces were just something I happened to notice, recalling this thread.

 

TBCH. While I have only been collecting ancients for only a few short months, I've been looking at a lot of coins lately, and I mean A LOT. <---I think I may have a problem.

Not being an expert by any stretch, I normally wouldn't feel confident to call out suspected fakes posted by members on this site, I'm glad that Barry did the honors.

My Spidey-sense tingled right away. The fabric simply isn't right on that coin. There is natural porosity and then there simply isn't.

Fortunately, it seems as if the coin can be returned and all will be made OK.

Still a bummer. Modern fakes piss me off.