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<p>[QUOTE=&quot;red_spork, post: 2626270, member: 74282&quot;]The coin I&#039;m sharing today is the first of two won in the most recent Roma e-auction and is now my oldest Roman coin by at least a few decades. Though this type comes from a very large and well-studied issue, the exact attribution is tricky, and has been heavily debated with many important scholars attributing them to either Rome, Neapolis in Campania, or Cosa in Etruria. I personally follow the attribution that Crawford gives in &quot;Coinage and Money Under the Roman Republic&quot;(CMRR), in opposition to his earlier Rome mint attribution given in Roman Republican Coinage(the catalog generally referred to as &quot;Crawford&quot;), that these were in fact minted at Cosa during the First Punic War as part of Rome&#039;s fleet-building efforts.</p><p><br /></p><p>In CMRR, Crawford argues that &quot;Cosa, with its excellent harbour and enclosed lagoons of Orbetello to the north was where Romans built and trained their first fleet and that the Minerva/Horse&#039;s head bronzes were struck on that occasion and to meet the expenses connected with that venture&quot;(pg. 39). Crawford also points out the stylistically, typologically and metrologically related Mars/Horse&#039;s head issues signed &quot;COZANO&quot; which should obviously be attributed to Cosa as well and further cites find evidence that suggests an area of circulation closer to Rome or Etruria and too far North to fit a Campanian origin.</p><p><br /></p><p>I am not going to delve far into the alternate arguments here, but for the interested reader I would recommend reading through <a href="http://arsclassicacoins.com/pdf/NAC_Sottovoce.pdf" target="_blank" class="externalLink ProxyLink" data-proxy-href="http://arsclassicacoins.com/pdf/NAC_Sottovoce.pdf" rel="nofollow">NAC&#039;s &quot;Numismatica Sottovoce&quot;</a>(PDF warning and yes, in Italian, but fairly easy to work through with Google Translate and some patience) in which Russo argues that these Minerva/Horse&#039;s head types are, in fact, the smallest denomination of a series of bronze coins that were meant to replace some of the local Campanian small change coinage in the aftermath of the Battle of Beneventum. I mainly reject this argument because the find evidence does not line up with it, and instead suggests that the three types Russo has grouped together are more likely three different types from three different mints, though their areas of circulation may have had some overlap.</p><p><br /></p><p>On to the actual coin itself: given how common the type is, I might normally have skipped this example due to its wear and loss of part of the legend and devices but decided to pick up this seemingly lesser example for a few reasons: first, because this type is restricted under the Italian MOU, I needed an example that had a pre-2011 provenance and my provenance hunt lead me to find that this type was previously in Andrew McCabe&#039;s collection(though not noted at Roma) and I was able to obtain a screenshot from Flickr showing a 2010 upload date on his photo of the coin, making it perfectly clear for import and trade. Second, while the Minerva/horse&#039;s head type overall is very common, the overwhelming majority of examples of this type have Minerva and the horse&#039;s head facing opposite directions. This particular example is a very scarce variety in which both heads face right. The combination of scarcity of the variety combined with the MOU restrictions drove me over the edge on this type and luckily I was able to win it at the opening bid, luckily avoiding the Clio bid-hammer that came down on some of the other lots around this one.</p><p><br /></p><p>[ATTACH=full]577030[/ATTACH]</p><p><br /></p><p>Roman Republic Æ litra(5.75g, 18mm), anonymous, after 264 B.C., Cosa mint. Helmeted head of minerva right; border of dots / Horse&#039;s head right, on base; behind, ROMA[NO] upwards. Crawford 17/1d; BMCRR Romano-Campanian 12; Sydenham 3a</p><p>Ex Thersites Collection, Roma e-sale 32 lot 662(incorrectly omitted from lot description), ex Andrew McCabe Collection, acquired in 2009.</p><p><br /></p><p>Please feel free to post anything relevant! First Punic War types, related &quot;Romano Campanian&quot; struck bronzes, whatever floats your boats.[/QUOTE]</p><p><br /></p>

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