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<p>[QUOTE=&quot;red_spork, post: 4112623, member: 74282&quot;]I&#039;ve had extremely good luck this month building my collection of Roma/Dioscuri denarii. Earlier this week I shared my <a href="https://www.cointalk.com/threads/just-barely-winning-the-race.354850/#post-4101267" class="internalLink ProxyLink" data-proxy-href="https://www.cointalk.com/threads/just-barely-winning-the-race.354850/#post-4101267">latest fully-anonymous denarius</a>. That same day, I found another very rare denarius, a type I honestly thought I&#039;d probably never own with a corn-ear(what us Americans call a grain-ear) symbol. It&#039;s a little porous, has some wear and a few scratches, and the corn-ear symbol itself not terribly rare, with a handful of examples on ACSeach, so you might wonder what makes this one so special?</p><p><br /></p><p>The short answer is the &quot;spike&quot; on the back of the helmet.&nbsp; This feature, known colloquially as the &quot;Bastianelli Spike&quot; due to its presence on the <a href="https://research.britishmuseum.org/research/collection_online/collection_object_details.aspx?assetId=616986001&amp;objectId=1156708&amp;partId=1" target="_blank" class="externalLink ProxyLink" data-proxy-href="https://research.britishmuseum.org/research/collection_online/collection_object_details.aspx?assetId=616986001&amp;objectId=1156708&amp;partId=1" rel="nofollow">Bastianelli specimen of the fully-anonymous variety of this type,</a> appears on all known denarii, quinarii and sestertii from the mint Crawford refers to as Sicily(1), the Crawford 68 series. Sicily(1) mainly minted fully-anonymous silver and only a tiny portion with the corn-ear mintmark, whereas the other Sicilian mint, referred to unsurprisingly as Sicily(2) minted the great majority of coins with the corn-ear mintmark in a <a href="https://www.acsearch.info/search.html?id=5993220" target="_blank" class="externalLink ProxyLink" data-proxy-href="https://www.acsearch.info/search.html?id=5993220" rel="nofollow">completely different and much finer style</a>.&nbsp; So while the corn-ear symbol alone is not terribly rare, it is extremely rare on the denarii and quinarii of this mint and of this style, and at time of writing there is only a single example of this denarius on ACSearch(<a href="https://www.acsearch.info/search.html?id=1102148" target="_blank" class="externalLink ProxyLink" data-proxy-href="https://www.acsearch.info/search.html?id=1102148" rel="nofollow">the RBW example</a> sold in 2011). Thankfully, this detail was missed by the seller and I suspect that&#039;s the only reason I was able to afford this very rare type.</p><p><br /></p><p>[ATTACH=full]1067355[/ATTACH] </p><p>Roman Republic AR Denarius(4.35g, 11h), Corn-ear series, 211-195 B.C., Sicilian mint. Helmeted head of Roma right with &quot;spike&quot; on rear of helmet; behind, X / The Dioscuri galloping right; below, corn-ear(wheat ear); ROMA in linear frame. Crawford 68/1a</p><p><br /></p><p>Lucernae, 10 Feb 2020, ex Bolaffi Auction 35, 28 November 2019, lot 58(part), reportedly ex old Italian collection</p><p><br /></p><p>As always, feel free to share anything related[/QUOTE]</p><p><br /></p>

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