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<p>[QUOTE=&quot;red_spork, post: 2287855, member: 74282&quot;]My favorites for the year:</p><p><br /></p><p>[ATTACH=full]458335[/ATTACH]</p><p>I bought this one because I was looking for a cheaper example of a Julius Caesar elephant denarius and this was the nicest one I could find in my price range. It has some damage but very little actual wear. I don&#039;t have the superpower of seeing everything that happened between the time this coin was minted and when it got to me, so this is largely &quot;educated conjecture&quot; but first, the style of this coin is the sans-serif piglike variety that Woytek identified as having come from a mint in Spain or Southern Gaul. The test cut is of the type that is associated with the hacksilber economy in Spain where verifying that a coin was actually made of silver was of the utmost importance because they were basically bullion. Lastly, the coin is on the higher end of the weight range for these types, nicely tying together the possibility that this coin was minted in Spain, made its way into the hands of the local Iberian population and was selected for its higher than average weight, test cut and hoarded before accumulating much real wear.</p><p>I have to thank Andrew McCabe for pointing this out. I realized the test cut seemed to be of Spanish origin after reading <a href="https://www.academia.edu/15713015/Andrew_McCabe_A_Hoard_of_Cut_Roman_Denarii_from_the_Second_Punic_War_in_Fides_Contributions_to_Numismatics_in_Honour_of_Richard_B._Witschonke" target="_blank" class="externalLink ProxyLink" data-proxy-href="https://www.academia.edu/15713015/Andrew_McCabe_A_Hoard_of_Cut_Roman_Denarii_from_the_Second_Punic_War_in_Fides_Contributions_to_Numismatics_in_Honour_of_Richard_B._Witschonke" rel="nofollow">this paper of his</a> about a hoard of similarly-cut Republican denarii, but he is the one who pointed out the style and weight when I brought this example to his attention.</p><p><br /></p><p>[ATTACH=full]458336[/ATTACH] </p><p>I bought this coin largely because it was a very nice example of a Republican bronze with good provenance and the seller&#039;s description that it may be from an unidentified lightweight series seemed very interesting to me. This series is discussed some in the RBW catalog, but the best source is Andrew McCabe&#039;s paper on anonymous bronzes, which identifies it as &quot;Group H1&quot;, a series of Second Punic War-era half-weight(compared to contemporary coins being struck in Rome) overstrikes on captured bronzes of Rome&#039;s vanquished enemies in Sardinia, Sicily and Southern Italy. It is a really cool coin, and I am glad that I bought it.</p><p><br /></p><p>[ATTACH=full]458345[/ATTACH] </p><p>Many CoinTalk members picked up an example of this type around the same time I did, and I actually hope to pick up another one myself in 2016. This is from a really interesting series of denarii minted in the recently-established Roman colony of Narbo, Gaul. The combination of a Roma head obverse and a Gallic warrior(possibly Bituitus) reverse is a really cool way to celebrate the founding of a Roman colony.</p><p><br /></p><p>[ATTACH=full]458344[/ATTACH] </p><p>This one is related to the founding of Narbo as well, but was minted in Rome the year before the previous one. I was always envious when the guys here posted their examples of the type so when I finally saw an example I liked I had to have it.</p><p><br /></p><p>[ATTACH=full]458348[/ATTACH] </p><p>This is a fairly common type, one of the most common Second Punic War-era bronzes actually, but I really, really like it. It has a really killer &quot;mars&quot; head and is overstruck on something, but I haven&#039;t identified what it&#039;s overstruck on just yet. I wish i could get a better picture, but it&#039;s got one of those glossy patinas that makes it difficult.[/QUOTE]</p><p><br /></p>

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