Two Possible Local Issues of the Social War

383, Lot: 478. Estimate $100. Sold for $120. This amount does not include the buyer’s fee.

Local coinages of central Italy. Early 1st century BC. Æ (13mm, 3.42 g, 2h). Wreathed head of young Dionysus right / Panther standing right, head facing, holding thrysus in jaws. Stannard & Sinner, “A Central Italian Coin with Dionysus/Panther Types, and Contacts Between Central Italy and Spain, in the 2nd and 1st Centuries BC,” in Saguntum 46 (2014), p. 159-180, fig. 1, 1-6; HN Italy 2673; SNG Milano II, p. 80, 18 (same dies). VF, brown patina.

From the RBW Collection. Ex Continental Collection (Classical Numismatic Group Electronic Auction 327, 28 May 2014), lot 58.

This scarce issue belongs to what can be called the “Italo-Baetican series” of small bronze and lead coins, found in Central and Southern Italy, Sicily, and Southern Spain. The panther/Dionysus type is particularly found in Southern Italy, though is absent from the finds at Pompeii, and is known to be overstruck on other pieces of the Italo-Baetican series, Roman bronzes of Q. Titi, and other post 90 BC Roman bronzes of circa 91-88 BC. Together, this suggests that the type was mot likely issued by a pro-Roman group during the Social War.