A Spanish Conundrum

CNG 108, Lot: 475. Estimate $3000. Sold for $2500. This amount does not include the buyer’s fee.

Anonymous. Circa 3rd-2nd century BC. PB Quadrans(?) (86mm, 598 g, 10h). Uncertain mint in Spain(?). Head right, wearing crested Corinthian helmet (Mars or Minerva?) / Horse leaping left on ground line; • • • above. Unpublished, nothing similar listed in CPM. As made, warm brown patina, some roughness on reverse, deep gouge on cheek.

The present lead enigma is unlike anything this cataloger has ever seen. The Republican aes grave-like size and denominational markers suggest that it could be a quadrans or teruncius from sometime around or before the Second Punic War. Stylistically, some comparison can be made to the Roman didrachm/litra coinage of circa 240-230 BC (Crawford 27/1, 26/1, and 25/1). The piece originates from Spain, but either of these periods would vastly predate the majority of the Iberian lead pieces, which were mostly civic or private issues of the mid 1st century BC or later. It is also significantly larger and more official in nature than any of the lead tokens or coins from the ancient world. Perhaps it is a lead substitute currency, but that would require a tremendous leap in thinking for a culture that still effectively viewed bronze as a precious metal. It cannot be a lead ingot, as those were never so finely formed and circular as this, and we can find no weight standard in which it would fit. 

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