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Research Coins: Electronic Auction

 
443, Lot: 473. Estimate $150.
Sold for $220. This amount does not include the buyer’s fee.

M. Aemilius Scaurus and Pub. Plautius Hypsaeus. 58 BC. AR Denarius (18mm, 3.56 g, 6h). Rome mint. Nabatean king Aretas kneeling to right, holding reins and olive branch before camel standing right / Jupiter driving quadriga left, holding reins and hurling thunderbolt; scorpion below horses. Crawford 422/1b; Sydenham 913; Aemilia 8; Type as RBW 1519. Good VF, lightly toned, a hint of porosity. Well centered for issue.


From the Andrew McCabe Collection, purchased from Numismática Prados, Lisbon.

The camel on this coin is unusually well engraved and in high relief for the type. This issue is notoriously poorly designed and executed, and evidently did not use the normal mint management process overseen by the annual college of moneyers. It was directly commissioned by the two curule aediles whose names appear on the coins, Marcus Scaurus and Publius Hypsaeus. Probably they contracted its manufacture without involving the normal experts, resulting in one of the worst made issues of the Roman Republic. This example is rather well made in context. Incidentally, RRC 422 is the watershed large issue present in mint condition in the Mesagne hoard (published by Hersh and Walker in ANS Museum Notes, 1984), whereas many other previously presumed earlier issues are missing. The date of RRC 422 is fixed as the Aedileship was historically known. The hoard is presumed buried in 58 BC; there being no reason to suggest an even later date. That means any large issues missing from the hoard, such as the Muses RRC 410 and the Plaetoria RRC 405 issue must post-date 58 BC. [Andrew McCabe]