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Research Coins: Electronic Auction

 
436, Lot: 404. Estimate $300.
Sold for $220. This amount does not include the buyer’s fee.

Anonymous. Circa 214 BC. Æ Sextans (25mm, 7.88 g, 11h). Corn-ear (first) series. Sicily mint. Head of Mercury right, wearing winged petasus; • • (mark of value) above / Prow of galley right; ROMA above; • • (mark of value) above. Cf. Crawford 42/3; Sydenham –; cf. RBW 143; Russo, Essays Hersh pl. 17, no. 32. EF, dark green patina with traces of red, flan split. Extremely rare.


From the Andrew McCabe Collection. Ex Bombarda Collection (Tkalec, 8 September 2008), lot 202.

This and the following coin are ‘without corn-ear’ varieties of the RRC 42/72 corn-ear series. They are easily identifiable from the nature of fighting platform with club on reverse, as well as the general style of the reverses and obverses that may all be the work of a single die engraver. The absence of the corn-ear was no accident, as the coins are of the same style, size, and weight as those with corn-ear, and though less common than those with corn-ear, are still not especially rare. It was a deliberate policy for unknown reasons. RRC notes that the quadrans with bull and snake comes without corn-ear on some examples. Russo in Essays Hersh expanded that observation to the full run of denominations. I cover them in my anonymous bronze study as Group B. Most sextantes, with or without corn-ear but of this style, weigh between 7 and 11 grams, clustered around the theoretical sextantal weight of 9 grams. This coin is at the lighter end, but many much heavier coins were struck with the same size dies on similar flans and in similar style but by chance slightly thicker. In general, the thin flan types such as this coin appear not to be overstrikes, yet often have dies and flans as large as much heavier coins. One might have thought the newly-made flan types would precede overstrikes, yet due to weight, RRC often flips the order as the thinner newly-made flans fall under RRC 72 and the heavier, thicker flans are usually overstrikes, thus RRC 42. Instead, the RRC 42/72 series should be classified not by weight but based on the nature of flan (overstrike or not; the latter usually thinner), die size, and the presence or absence of a corn-ear. [Andrew McCabe]