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

Fourees are really interesting coins. Most of you saw my recent imitative purchase:

This one is a celtic imitative mule and a fouree as well. They're not quite my thing, but they are cool coins and you'd never know this one was a fouree if it weren't for the break in the plating on the reverse where some of the bronze has corroded underneath. The plating is actually quite thick, as I did a very small scratch test on the edge and could not find bronze.

 

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4E sounds like a duck's shoe size...

 

Fourree is the correct spelling. Although, other variant spellings are commonly accepted as well. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fourrée

 

The next question is whether you will accept my opinion that all fourrees are plated but not all plated coins are fourree. For example LRB's with silvering are plated but not fourree. I only use the term for what I call the foil technique coins but that may be going too far. If anyone wants to read Campbell and discuss the options, I'd be happy but it is not a matter of general interest.

 

I cannot but agree with you. Silvered LRB's are examples of plated coins which are certainly official products and should not be considered fourrees!

 

There's no question that non-Romans such as the Dacians used transfer dies to make imitations of Republican denarii, generally of good silver. HT3+ on my no-longer-updated imitations site really proves the case beyond any doubt at all: http://rrimitations.ancients.info/copies-hybridtransferdies.html. Note how the reverse, derived from a denarius of C. Naevius Balbus, reproduces even the serrations of the original coin.

Phil Davis

 

Plating is perhaps not the correct term for silvered LRB's. In many cases, the Romans used a chemical "pickling" technology which induced the bronze to accrue a thin layer of metal which sometimes contained no silver at all, but was rather an alloy of tin, lead, and antimony. I have the same tendency to use the word plating only when describing foil techniques that utilized bona fide silver, and not some sort of imitative alloy.

 

Great coin!

 

In the "pickling" process, was this a crude form of electroplating as we use in manufacturing today?

I am really asking, how did the adhere the coating to the base coin?

 

It's difficult to sift out fact from allegory in ancient alchemical sources, but here's an example from Phys. Myst. 13...

"Threat the "chrysokolla" of the Macedonians, when coated with verdigris, triturating with urine of a heifer until it transmutes: for its nature is hidden within. If it transmutes, immerse it in castor oil, burning and dipping many times: then go and cook it with styptic earth, first titurating it with misy, or make it yellow with unfired sulfur and gild the whole golden mass."

Anyone interested in these various techniques should read Greco-Roman Alchemy and Coins of Imitation Silver, by Paul T. Keyser, in AJN 7-8. Keyser is a chemist and does a yeoman's job of explaining the chemistry behind the ancient texts. It's still rather difficult to follow as a layman, however.

 

This sounds like an excellent project! I might have some styptic earth lying around somewhere, but I think I'm all out of heifer urine...

 

I'm no chemist, but I believe you have to start with a heifer.

If you read Keyser, you'll come to a realization of just how sophisticated the techniques of ancient alchemists were. It's interesting to note that test cuts are prominent on RR silver, less so on early Imperial issues, and altogether gone when debased antoniniani were being pickled. At that point, the color was merely for show, and accepted as such, much like the nickel and copper plating on our modern coins.

 

triplicate

 

duplicate

 

We lost your original post due to a forum glitch, Doug, but the technique you refer to is only one of the types that Keyser refers to as pickling. I'll have to dig out the volume later tonight and re-read it so that I don't characterize anything incorrectly.

 

Love the graphic on your cupid biga!! That's one way to get Caesar's attention

 

I'm very happy to announce that TIF's untitled work has won the coveted Chrsmat71's Best Historical Fiction in a Coin Forum Post Award for 2015. Honorable mention goes to chrsmat71 himself or his short story, There Once Was a Man from Nantucket , published in US coin forum earlier this year.

Congratulations to @TIF !

 

I missed this thread when originally posted and didn't notice it until yesterday...

Wonderful OP @TIF !!! Three checks from one purchase!!! Cool story too LOL

Terrific posts one and all!

I have a couple of fourrees and at least one fun/unusual mode of transport type, which you all have seen by now....but no 'mules' that I'm aware of.

Congrats TIF!!!

 

I'm going to use this thread for other coins collected for my "Alternative Modes of Transportation" set.

A centaur biga from moneyer M. Aurelius Cotta was high on the buy list and I was lucky to find a decent coin recently, at a reasonable price. It is from last night's CrackOut party


ROMAN REPUBLIC, M. Aurelius Cotta
139 BCE
AR Denarius, 20 mm, ? gm (can't find my scale right at the moment )
Obv: helmeted head of Roma right; X (mark of value) behind; COTA before; dotted border
Rev: Hercules carrying a club, driving biga of centaurs right; centaurs each carrying a branch; M·AVRELI (AVR is ligate); in exergue, ROMA; line border
Ref: Crawford 229/1b; Sydenham 429; Aurelia 16
formerly slabbed, NGC bulk submission holder, "VF"

On this coin, Roma looks like someone you wouldn't want to cross!

For a supposedly "common" coin, this one sure was a bit tough to find.

 

LOVE IT TIF!!!!!

Another I just HAVE TO HAVE!!!