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<p>[QUOTE=&quot;Alegandron, post: 2629143, member: 51347&quot;]I REALLY enjoy everyone&#039;s unique coin posting. Fascinating history, and a lot of regret for all of the &quot;lost&quot; coins either making them unique, or that they were intentionally a one-off strike.&nbsp; They are all GREAT!</p><p><br /></p><p>This is the most &quot;Unique&quot; or &quot;One of a Kind&quot; that I have:</p><p><br /></p><p>I captured this due to my intrigue with the mysterious Etrurian peoples, who were the predecessors to the Romans.&nbsp; Rome&#039;s first Kings were from Etruria, however, there are a lot of mysteries as to where the Etrurians originated.&nbsp; Rome borrowed a lot from Etrurian culture as they assimilated them into Roman culture.</p><p><br /></p><p>This coin is one of TWO known:&nbsp; The British Museum, and mine in private hands...&nbsp; I was careful that I had good provenance to ensure it&#039;s authenticity and rarity.</p><p><br /></p><p>I understand the Etrurian alphabet was different and generally retrograde to the Latin alphabet.&nbsp; I borrowed a pic from [USER=74282]@red_spork[/USER] &#039;s beautiful RR AR Sestertius... the Symbol for Sestertius was IIS as shown on Sporky&#039;s coin. </p><p>[ATTACH=full]578201[/ATTACH][ATTACH=full]578202[/ATTACH]</p><p>You must read the II&quot;C&quot; on mine in retrograde, (retrograde C standing for the &quot;S&quot; sound.)</p><p><br /></p><p>With it being roughly the same size and weight as a RR AR Sestertius, and this one representing 2-1/2 Asses, I wonder if the ROMANS borrowed their coinage from the Etrurians...&nbsp; I have an Etrurian 10 Asses (similar to Roman Republic Denarius at that time), and an Etrurian 20 Asses (similar to a Roman Republic Didrachm at that time.)</p><p><br /></p><p>[ATTACH=full]578199[/ATTACH]</p><p><b>Etruria, Populonia</b></p><p>2 ½ asses , AR 0.85 g</p><p>3rd century BCE</p><p>Obv: Radiate female head r.; behind, IIC (retrograde).</p><p>Rev: Blank.</p><p>Ref: EC 104 (misdescribed, Female head with an Attic helmet). Historia Numorum Italy 179.</p><p>NAC Comment: <b>Of the highest rarity, apparently only the second specimen known.</b> Dark patina and about very fine.</p><p>Ex: From the collection of E.E. Clain-Stefanelli</p><p>(Further research E.E. Clain-Stefanelli&#039;s excellent provenance... )</p><p><i>ANS Executive Director Ute Wartenburg reported that Elvira Eliza Clain-Stefanelli died Oct. 1, 2001. Mrs. Stefanelli retired in 2000 as the Senior Curator of the National Numismatic Collection in the Numismatics Division of the National Museum of American History, Smithsonian Institution, Washington, DC. She was at the Smithsonian for forty years, and was responsible with her husband Vladimir for organizing and building up the National Numismatic Collection (from 60,000 to over 1,000,000 pieces.) She survived a Nazi concentration camp in WWII Europe, moved to Rome, and learned numismatics there. In New York she and her husband worked for Stack&#039;s and started the Coin Galleries division there. Her most recent publication was &quot;Life In Republican Rome On its Coinage&quot;, a lavishly illustrated discussion of the themes which appear on the coinage of the Roman Republic, published in 1999. Her major contribution to the science of numismatic literature was her classic &quot;Numismatic Bibliography&quot;, published in 1985.</i>[/QUOTE]</p><p><br /></p>

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