My latest pickup is a sextans, minted circa 194-190 B.C. with a crescent mark above the prow. I've previously posted my crescent denarius, which is a common type from the first series with crescent marks. That series included a sextans as well, but the two are differentiated both by style(Cf. NAC 61 lot 236 for an example) and by the position of ROMA, which is above the prow on the earlier series and below the prow on this later series. Like most post-Second Punic War sextantes, this type(as well as the related type mentioned above) is very rare: I've only been able to find a total of 8 examples including this one and the ones in the BMC and the BNF Paris and Crawford himself only cited a single example in Paris. Unfortunately I don't know a full reason for the scarcity of this and related types. For whatever reason, the small change denominations of the uncia and the sextans begin to almost disappear right at the end of the Second Punic War. Many subsequent series of bronzes over the next several decades include both an uncia and a sextans but they are produced in incredibly small numbers and many are only known today from either a handful of examples or in some cases only a single example. This happened well before the retarrifing of the denarius to 16 asses, so it's not as if some sudden revaluation made these denominations obsolute, but for whatever reason the Romans saw no reason to produce many of them If anyone has any ideas or solid information on the subject, however, I'd love to hear it. Roman Republic Æ Sextans(20.4mm, 5.77g). Anonymous(Second crescent series), 194-190 BC. Rome mint. Head of Mercury right wearing winged Petasos, •• above / Prow of galley right; above, crescent and before, ••; below, ROMA. Crawford 137/6. Ex. RBW Collection. Ex. Goodman collection, CNG 45, lot 1322, 3/18/1998 Please, feel free to post anything relevant
Nice coin. I've been wanting one of these, but, for whatever reason, I keep putting it off in favor of something else. One of these days.....
Cool coin!! The most relevant I currently have is a sextans, anonymous circa 211-208 BC, with the Mercury obverse and sans crescent prow reverse...replaced by a grain ear....and a uncia with such a worn/corroded reverse I can only guess if it ever had a crescent on it---with the Attic Roma obverse.
Your uncia looks, to me, to be one of the early anonymous series. I'm on mobile so don't have access to my library but I'd wager it's either Crawford 38 or 41 series, probably 41
One really interesting fact I neglected to mention last night in my tired state was that this coin came with an old collection tag indicating that it was the only RR coin found in a small hoard of very worn bronzes along the Danube in Eastern Europe. It also has a note written under that to the effect that most of the others were Greek "Male head right/trident" types(possibly from Sicily?). Obviously I have no way of verifying this but the patina is similar to what I'd expect from a coin that was a hoard find rather than a surface find.
I don't know that this is relevant but I'll post it anyway since previous postings turned up nothing in the way of information or ID. I bought it at a show because I thought it would be easy to ID with the crescent but it is not a crescent coin. Overstruck? Any help appreciated. 4.26g
Nice coin and even better with the old collection tag with some reference to where it was found. I am not sure why the Romans concentrated on silver and larger bronze, but they may have been more interested in paying soldiers and did not want to spend efforts on small change. I recently read an interesting article: "The value of coinage in the Second Punic War and after" by Clare Rowan. https://www.academia.edu/6027314/Th...rld_British_Archaeological_Reports_2014_77-88 This author states the Romans removed all silver issued by others and re-issued it as RR coins. Some cities were allowed to continue to mint bronze and older bronze was not removed from circulation.
I like those so much. Nice pick up ! The closest I have is an earlier sextans, not showing a crescent but a victory instead : Republic, Sextans struck in Rome, circa 211-206 BC Head of Mercury right, wearing petasus, two pellets above helmet ROMA, Prow of galley right, surmounted by a victory right 5.11 gr Ref : RCV #1218 Q
Awesome OP-coin, red_spork .... ummm, I don't have an example from that exact period (194-190 BC), but I do have a few AE RR examples from surrounding time periods (wanna see 'em, again?) Anonymous, Overstruck AE Triens 206-195 BC Minerva c/m & Prow c/m (host is Man-faced bull) Anonymous Roman Republic AE As 179-170 BC Janus & Prow with Fly Anonymous Roman Republic AE As 169-158 BC Janus & Prow with Wolf suckling twins Anonymous AE quadrans 128 BC Hercules & Prow with Elehant Head ... yah, it's all I've got
Them focusing more on the denominations needed to pay the soliders makes sense. I hadn't seen the referenced article before but I've bookmarked it to read tonight. Yannis Stoyas, however, wrote a similar paper about the introduction, arguing convincingly that it was associated with Rome's capture of Capua and the weight standard and devices were adopted from local coinage.
