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Research Coins: Electronic Auction

 

Very Rare – Ex Staal

362, Lot: 405. Estimate $100.
Sold for $525. This amount does not include the buyer’s fee.

Anonymous issues. temp. Tiberius, AD 14-37. Æ Tessera (22mm, 3.37 g, 2h). Struck circa AD 22-37. Three Muses dancing, one playing flute / Large VIIII within wreath. Buttrey 23 (unlisted rev. numeral); Staal p. 149 (this coin illustrated);. Fine, dark gray-brown patina, some green and red, chipped.


Ex Mark A. Staal Collection; Classical Numismatic Group XXXIII (15 March 1995), lot 1879.

For centuries, numismatists have been puzzled by a curious series of bronze tokens bearing on their reverse numerals from I to XVI. The obverse types on these tokens vary dramatically, bearing not only portraits of Augustus, Tiberius, and Livia, but also various erotic scenes, heterosexual and (possibly) homosexual, or bigas, maenads, capricorns, and other scattered mythological figures. The most prominent theories suggest that they were tickets for entrance to the theater or the games, and the numerals represented sections in the stands, or that they were brothel tokens, with the obverse representing a chosen “product” and the reverse the price. However, both of these theories seem unlikely when one considers that the two seemingly divergent themes are joined by die links to the numeral reverses.