Featured Mule or goat? Both! Gragulus/Renius fourée denarius

Discussion in 'Ancient Coins' started by TIF, Nov 1, 2015.

  1. TIF

    TIF Always learning.

    FourreeMuleGoatBiga.jpg
    Roman Republic fourée mule denarius
    L. Antestius Gragulus, 136 BCE, and C. Renius, 138 BCE

    ancient forgery, 3.18 gm
    Obv: Roma helmeted head right, * below chin, GRAG behind
    Rev: Juno Caprotina in a biga of goats, C・RENI below, ROMA in exergue
    Ref: Obverse S.115, Cr.238/1, Syd.451, RSC Antestia 9; Reverse S.108, Cr.231/1, Syd.432, RSc Renia 1

    I am thrilled to have acquired this fun little coin. While fourées (ancient plated counterfeit coins) might not be everyone’s cup of tea, I know many of you here like them and own them. I’ve been particularly envious of John Anthony’s Vespasian “zombie” mule denarius.

    Doug, Steve, Eng, Zumbly, Cucumbor, Noob, and other CoinTalk members have fun fourées… I wanted one too :(. It took a while to find one that called to me but for once I was patient. One whimsical subset I’m building is “Alternative Modes of Transportation”: coins featuring people riding on something other than horses, or chariots drawn by something other than horses. In Roman Republican coinage there are numerous amusing options. Various errors such a brockages are fairly common in the Roman Repubican era; fourées are too. Mule fourées are harder to find. With this one coin I ticked three checkboxes on The List:

    ✔︎ fourée
    ✔︎ mule
    ✔︎ goat biga

    Very efficient. :D

    The prevailing opinion seems to be that fourées were not struck from official dies. For a good discussion of fourées, see Doug's webpage. I’ve looked through all of acsearch, CNG’s archives, and whatever catalogs I have and did not find a die match for either side of my coin. The style certainly looks official enough, but I’ve yet to find a die match. This doesn’t prove that the dies were unofficial but it does skew the odds.

    I’d love to know how this coin came to be. Since we’ll never know, I’ve imagined the following story.

    ...

    Rome, 150 BCE

    “Appi! Get in here and help your sister with this amphora!”

    He pretends not to hear his mother. Squinting and hunched close to the ground, with a stick he makes a few more strokes in the portrait he’s drawn at the edge of the dirt road. Not bad, he thinks. It looks like Pater, or it would if he had a seedling growing out of his ear. He plucks the offending plant and gathers rocks to place protectively around the portrait. Maybe I can finish it after supper. It’s the best one I’ve done so far.

    “Appius Cornelius, you get in this house right this minute, young man!”

    Focused on his work, he didn’t notice the older boy’s approach, nor the foot carefully placed so that Appi would trip upon standing up.

    Windmilling his arms, Appi tries to regain balance but tumbles directly on the dirt portrait.

    “Aww. Did you ruin your precious mud pie, little Caecelius?”

    Without looking up Appi knew the voice. Lucius Antestius Gragulus. Well, it could be worse. At least this time he didn’t give me a wedgie.

    Rome, 136 BCE

    Sweat was dripping down his nose onto the die. It didn’t have far to fall; his nose was mere inches away. Sharpening his graver, he put the final touches on Roma's face.

    Nearsighted to the point of near blindness, he was lucky to have such artistic talent. What work would otherwise be available for someone like him? In the three years since he’d been in the service of the Rome mint he had helped make hundreds of dies. His work was superior to most of the other engravers’ dies, although he knew better than to brag. Short, slight, and squinty meant being an easy target for bullies, even at eighteen years of age. In name, he was only a junior apprentice. His job was to add the lettering after the master carved the design. In reality, his master made him stay hours later to practice carving the main devices. Recently Appius found that his own "practice" dies were being passed off as the master’s work. The revelation started a chain of events which would change his life.

    I’m eighteen and still a junior apprentice. My work is better than the master’s yet I’m still being paid as a menial laborer. I’ll never be elevated to master or even junior apprentice as long as that jackass is alive, and Antonia will never marry me until I have at least made apprentice. I’m lucky that she even likes me. People say she’s ugly, maybe that’s why she accepts my advances. She sure feels beautiful though...

    Thwack. “Appius, you scraggy little cinaedus! You’re going to rust out that die before the first denarius is struck! Move you stupid head further away and stop sweating!”

    It’s as hot as a brazier in here, you pig’s ass, he thought, but he wiped his brow and raised his head, at least until the dominus was out of sight.

    No more, he silently vowed. I snuck a Renius die out of here two years ago, and now I have but to engrave the letters on this Gragulus. Rufus has been making plated flans in a workshop hidden near the docks. If we spread the forgeries out in the city, maybe get them into the hands of travelers and soldiers, we won’t have to put up with these fools any longer. I wonder how Antonia would feel about moving to Sicily?

    ...

    Please show your fourées, mules, and unusual modes of transportation :)
     
    Last edited: Nov 4, 2015
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  3. Alegandron

    Alegandron "ΤΩΙ ΚΡΑΤΙΣΤΩΙ..." ΜΕΓΑΣ ΑΛΕΞΑΝΔΡΟΣ, June 323 BCE

    LOL, great story. And it looks like a bankers mark or pm test mark on the reverse too... as well a good toning... LOTSA check-offs! :D
     
    TIF and Mikey Zee like this.
  4. TIF

    TIF Always learning.

    Thanks!!

    I guess it could have test marks on the reverse but suspect you're seeing areas where the plating has failed.
     
    stevex6 and Alegandron like this.
  5. red_spork

    red_spork Triumvir monetalis

    If you do find what looks like a die link, look very closely. Fourees were sometimes made from transfer dies. Some very high quality modern forgeries are made using a similar process.
     
    Volodya and TIF like this.
  6. Carthago

    Carthago Does this look infected to you?

    That is a very nice and very well made fouree! If it didn't have the breaks in the plating, I think it would be hard to tell it was a fouree with just a picture. Nice coin!
     
    TIF likes this.
  7. dougsmit

    dougsmit Member

    What I find interesting here is the fact that my mule fourree also has a Gragulus obverse but with an M. Aburius reverse. I hear a lot about transfer dies but some I have seen so labeled did not strike me as certain matches. Certainly mine is not the same die as TIF's. Were either transferred or are both cut by someone well skilled and using the other as a guide? The modern transfer methods were not available back then but they may have had other ways.
    ra1090bb0223.jpg

    At the show Friday, a dealer had a fourree Republican priced at $150. That is absurd. When I bought mine, they were considered uncollectible by everyone save fools. I paid $25 to a dealer I never patronized (because he was so overpriced) because I already owned solid coins of both types and thought the mule was interesting. TIF's coin is as nice as they get.
     
  8. seth77

    seth77 Well-Known Member

    My favorite biga must be this one pulled by serpents:

    2472124.jpg
     
  9. TIF

    TIF Always learning.

    That is one of my favorites too, still missing from my set. Yours is fantastic!!
     
  10. seth77

    seth77 Well-Known Member

    I wish it were mine. I was watching it but it ended for a whooping 1800CHF, way way above my budget :)
     
  11. John Anthony

    John Anthony Ultracrepidarian

    Love the coin, love the story. When's the novel coming out?
     
    Alegandron and TIF like this.
  12. TIF

    TIF Always learning.

  13. Bing

    Bing Illegitimi non carborundum Supporter

    Love your new coin. One of the best fouree's I've seen. Congrats.
    C RENIUS.jpg
    C RENIUS
    AR Denarius
    OBVERSE: Helmeted head of Roma right, X behind
    REVERSE: Juno Capriotina in biga of goats right, C RENI below goats, ROMA in ex
    Struck at Rome 138 BC
    3.6g, 16mm
    Cr231/1, Syd 432
     
  14. stevex6

    stevex6 Random Mayhem

    Wow Princess => that's an absolutely awesome coin (and an even better fourree coin!!)

    => it's a transportation coin => it's a fourree => "and" it's got awesome toning!!

    :rolleyes::rolleyes::rolleyes:

    You're correct => I also have a fourree that I "love" ...

    KINGS of MACEDON. Philip III Arrhidaios
    Fourrée Fifth Tetradrachm
    323-317 BC
    Copying Amphipolis mint issue struck under Polyperchon, circa 318–317 BC
    Diameter: 13 mm
    Weight: 1.94 grams
    Obverse: Head of Apollo right, wearing tainia
    Reverse: Youth on horseback right; shield below
    Reference: For prototype, cf. Le Rider pl. 46, 29 & 32; cf. Troxell, Studies, Group 8, 382; cf. SNG ANS 731-5
    Other: 8h … toned, breaks in plating exposing bronze core
    From the collection of a Southern Pathologist, purchased from Antioch Associates, 23 February 1998

    Kings of Macedon Fourree.jpg
     
  15. TIF

    TIF Always learning.

    Thanks for posting it, Steve-O! How about adding your funky modes of transportation coins? I know you have several...

    Here are some of my non-horse bigas and quadrigas:

    [​IMG]
    Roman Republic
    moneyer L. Julius L. f. Caesar, 103 BC

    AR denarius, 17mm, 3.9 gm
    Obv: Helmeted head of Mars left; CAESAR; ・J above (or retrograde C?)
    Rev: Venus Genetrix in chariot left, drawn by two Cupids; lyre to left; ・J above
    Ref: Crawford 320/1
    ex RBW Collection

    Cupid bigas didn't catch on, plus the biga's wheel placement was an issue.

    [​IMG]

    Another flying animal with dubious aerodynamics:
    [​IMG]
    THRACE, Pautalia. Caracalla
    CE 198-217
    AE29, 16.4 gm
    Obv: AYT K M AY CEY ANTΩNEINOC; Laureate, draped and cuirassed bust right
    Rev: OYΛΠIAC ΠAYTAΛIAC; Asklepios seated right on back of winged serpent
    Ref: Varbanov 5007

    Hippocamp quadriga! (insert girlie squeal)
    [​IMG]
    PHOENICIA, Berytos
    1st century BCE
    Æ19.5, 5.9 gm
    Obv: Turreted head of Tyche right
    Rev: Poseidon standing left in quadriga drawn by four hippocamps Ref: SNG Copenhagen 83
     
  16. dougsmit

    dougsmit Member

    I have an opinion on that one. You can spell it as you wish. I use fourree after the choice made by Campbell in his great book on the subject
    http://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=inu.30000104992965;view=1up;seq=7
    now free to all who click. He rarely uses the word and I am not devoted enough or French so I don't go to the trouble of the é. Call me lazy. Other spellings may be equally fine but I have not seen the books I worship written by their proponents.
     
    TIF likes this.
  17. TIF

    TIF Always learning.

    I'm leaning towards just calling them "plated".

    Or, if I were ten years old and texting someone about ancient plated counterfeit coins, 4E :D
     
  18. Pishpash

    Pishpash Well-Known Member

    If you were my 10 year old, I would want to know who the hell you were texting :D
     
    Cucumbor, Mikey Zee, zumbly and 2 others like this.
  19. stevex6

    stevex6 Random Mayhem

    I use fourree because doug uses fourree!!

    dougsmit.jpg
     
  20. Alegandron

    Alegandron "ΤΩΙ ΚΡΑΤΙΣΤΩΙ..." ΜΕΓΑΣ ΑΛΕΞΑΝΔΡΟΣ, June 323 BCE

    LOL, googled French translation for fourree = STUFFED in English. I thought it was a derivative of "Forgery"

    Laughed, then realized, yup, base-metal is "stuffed" into a casing of silver...

    And, @TIF it showed the accent on the first "e" in French
     
    Mikey Zee and TIF like this.
  21. zumbly

    zumbly Ha'ina 'ia mai ana ka puana

    Are you actually trying to increase the desirability (and prices) of fourrees? Well, you're succeeding! Is anyone else just a teeny bit annoyed that their authentic ancient coins aren't as beautiful as TIF's fourree? :p
     
    Mikey Zee, TIF and stevex6 like this.
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