These are the last two of the bronzes that arrived Monday, both with great provenance. A bit later than the handful of Second Punic War-era bronzes that make up the rest of my Republican bronze collection Roman Republic Æ quadrans(18.3 mm, 6.16 g, 11 h). Cnaeus Gellius. 138 B.C. Rome mint. Head of young Hercules right, wearing lion's skin headdress, three pellets behind / CN·GEL / ROMA, prow of galley right, three pellets below. Crawford 232/4; Sydenham 435b. Ex. RBW collection, Ex. Goodman Collection(Privately purchased by RBW in 1996). Very Scarce. Crawford remarks that the moneyer may be the historian Cnaeus Gellius. Both sides are fairly rough, but the obverse has a really great Hercules that I think more than makes up for the reverse. Roman Republic Æ Sextans(6.5g, 19mm). Anonymous(Marcus Durmius?), 189-180 BC. Rome mint. Head of Mercury right wearing winged Petasos, •• above / Prow of galley right; bull standing right and MD above, •• before, ROMA below. Crawford 142/5, Sydenham 299d. Ex. Andrew McCabe, Ex. RBW, Ex. Goodman(Unsold at CNG 45 lot 1333, March 1998). Very scarce This sextans comes from a period where sextantes were struck in very limited numbers and are very scarce. The moneyer is thought to possibly be a "Marcus Durmius" from the MD monogram. Click on the image below to see the "bull and MD" highlighted. This one was very difficult to photograph and pick up the bull and MD clearly but once you know what you're looking for it's easy to spot
Both nice, but the quadran is my fav. And, now that you poin it out, I can make out part of the bull and monogram.
I'm with Bing... I really love that quadrans! Here's my quadrans....and that stow-a-way bull?: From an EX RBW listing---Anonymous, Hercules and Prow, 19.8 mm, 3.86 grams; Crawford 56/5, Syd 143c and my Sextans:
awesome additions, red_spork (congrats!!) ... both are very cool (man, I love the AE RR examples ... definitely among the coolest coins "ever"!!) Ummm, here is a pretty cool quadrans ... => wow, I love the "number of dots as a denomination" ... very cool
I'm always envious when you post this thing. One of these days I'll find a nice example of one of the "Elephant" series bronzes.
