Owner Comments:
Second Punic War issue, among the first gold coins of the Roman Republic. Anonymous. 211-207 BC. AV 60 As (3.36 gm / 14mm). Helmeted head of Mars right; LVX, behind / Eagle standing right on thunderbolt; ROMA below. Crawford 44/2; Sydenham 226. EF with scratch and scuffs.
Video at:
https://studio.youtube.com/video/Yl3_8rNzRKE/edit
NGC has certified 16 of these, not including this one.
"Rome's capture and plundering of Syracuse in 212 BC and successes in Spain around this time provided the gold for the first large Roman coinage in that metal, circa 211 BC. Gold pieces in three denominations, with numerals setting their values at 60, 40 and 20 copper asses, were introduced alongside the silver denarius, quinarius, quadrigatus and sestertius. Although the overall coinage reform proved lasting, the gold denominations were only struck for two or three years and soon disappeared from circulation."
"When the Romans issued their second gold coinage in the war against Hannibal, they continued to make innovations to their monetary system that were borne of necessity. The first gold coinage had been issued c. 218-216 B.C., when Rome was pushed back on its heels after Hannibal’s initial successes on the battlefield. Though the Carthaginian army was still a menacing threat in Italy when this new coinage was struck c. 211-207 B.C., the tide of the war had shifted. This coinage was issued from a position of greater strength than the first.
It is comprised of coins denominated at 60, 40 and 20 asses, and its martial nature is made clear with the designs – the helmeted head of the war-god Mars, and the eagle of the supreme god Jupiter, standing upon his thunderbolt. Various resources had been tapped to issue these coins, including special levies and loot from Syracuse, which fell to the Romans in 212. Meanwhile, in 211 the Romans had forced Capua into submission, thus denying Hannibal his main supply depot in Southern Italy. In that same year the Romans finally abandoned the didrachm (‘quadrigatus’) as their silver coin in favour of the lighter denarius, which would serve as Rome’s principal coin for the next 450 years.
Unlike the first gold coinage, which would appear to have been struck in a single place, and perhaps on a single occasion, the second gold coinage was struck in much larger quantities and demonstrates a variety that suggests portions were struck at moving mints ranging as far afield as Etruria and Sicily. Beyond these final issues of the Second Punic War, the Romans struck no other gold until the Imperatorial period, beginning with aurei for Sulla in the late 80's B.C." Although, someone also struck a gold aureus of Titus Quinctius Flamininus after he "set Greece free" from Macedonian rule about 100 years before that aureus of Sulla.
The eagle on the thunderbolt on the reverse has been interpreted as an attempt to associate Rome with the Ptolemaic empire centered in Egypt. The eagle is somewhat reminiscent of the eagle that had consistently been a symbol on Ptolemaic coinage since the very beginning of the century, and it has been suggested that Ptolemy IV Philopator may have provided gold for this issue to act as a counterweight to the involvement of Philip V of Macedon on the side of Carthage. [Meadows 1998]. We know that in the First Punic War, Ptolemy II had declined to assist Carthage, because Ptolemy said he was a friend of both the Romans and the Carthaginians. An almost exactly-the-same style eagle on thunderbolt appears on a quarter-stater or triobol of Tarentum from 276-272 B.C., also facing right.
This is a coin I have been chasing for a long time. It has scars but is still more attractive than others I've seen lately within this price range. I was the second-highest bidder on both of the incredible examples of this issue that sold on Heritage in January and April this year, 2019. https://coins.ha.com/itm/roman-republic/ancient-coins-roman/ancients-anonymous-ca-211-bc-av-60-asses-15mm-334-gm-4h-ngc-choice-au-5-5-5-5/a/3073-30226.s?ic4=GalleryView-Thumbnail-071515 . I even made an offer through Heritage to the owner of the one that sold for less in January. No deal.
There was one in a Roma Numismatics auction that ended about a week before this one, but it was withdrawn as a counterfeit.
This coin is traced back to the collection of Consul Eduard Friedrich Weber, sold with the rest of his collection at Jacob Hirsch Auction XXI, November 16, 1908, lot 249.
https://archive.org/details/AuctionsCatalog21/page/n19 ; https://archive.org/details/AuctionsCatalog21/page/n355
It had a starting price of 81 Marks. https://archive.org/details/AuctionsCatalog21/page/n415
In 1908, a German Mark was a silver coin with an actual silver weight of 0.16 troy ounces. A US Dollar in 1908 contained 0.77 actual silver weight. That's 4.8 Marks per dollar, or, a starting price of just $16.87. I don't know what it sold for.
Weber's family was originally from Bielefeld. His father David Friedrich Weber (1786-1868) moved to Hamburg and founded a company that traded successfully with South America. Eduard himself was born in 1830 and in 1877 he was appointed consul for the Hawaiian Islands, an office he held until 1902. He died September 19, 1907 in Hamburg, and his coins were auctioned off in at least two auctions, this coin in November, 1908.
According to the Forward to the auction catalog by Jacob Hirsch, Weber: "created a collection of Greek and Roman coins of scientific significance not surpassed by any other private collection in the world." "Sometimes he showed me the pieces which he acquired as a schoolboy with the expenditure of his whole pocket money." "He was attended by teachers like Theodor Mommsen and Ernst Curtius who helped to develop his curiosity and enthusiasm for collecting, which kept his personality up to old age in an admirable juvenile freshness." https://archive.org/details/AuctionsCatalog21/page/n5
German Wikipedia says: "one of the greatest German art collectors of his time, Weber was the owner of the important art collection known as "Galerie Weber", which contained mainly Old German, Dutch and Italian paintings. He also had an excellent collection of coins (Greek, Roman and Hamburg coins). Among the approximately 370 works that were open to the public were works by Peter Paul Rubens, Rembrandt, Andrea Mantegna, Hans Holbein the Elder, Albrecht Dürer and Lucas Cranach."
The auctioneer Jacob Hirsch had galleries in Paris and Munich where he invited bidders from New York right up until World War One, when he moved to Geneva and got Swiss citizenship.