Q. Titius. 90 BC. Æ As (26mm, 9.73 g, 5h). Rome mint.

Electronic Auction 458
Lot: 290. Estimated: $ 200

Selections from the Andrew McCabe Collection, Bronze

Sold For $ 180. This amount does not include the buyer’s fee.

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Q. Titius. 90 BC. Æ As (26mm, 9.73 g, 5h). Rome mint. Laureate head of bearded Janus / Prow of galley right; Q•TITI above, ass head to right. Crawford 341/4d; Sydenham 694b; Type as RBW 1279. Brown patina, some roughness. Good VF.

From the Andrew McCabe Collection. Ex English Amateur Scholar Collection (Numismatica Ars Classica 92, Part II, 24 May 2016), lot 1628 (with his ticket dated Feb. 14th, 1986).

The write-up in NAC 92 (influenced by a brief examination of the coin by me) suggested that the symbol before the prow was not known. Having now had the chance to examine the coin at leisure and to compare with other examples, I now realize the symbol is an ass head, with very long ears extending above and below a narrow head, and cited in RRC by examples in Bologna and Copenhagen. Bahrfedlt Nachtraege Volume 2 (1900) Table 5: 115, 116 illustrates two examples of the ass head from different dies; this appears to be from a third die. All the semuncial bronze series with symbols present interpretation difficulties – the lack of sufficient illustrated examples in any one reference necessitates a large library to make sense of them. Hopefully, in time this can be rectified! [Andrew McCabe]

Closing Date and Time: 18 December 2019 at 11:36:20 ET.

All winning bids are subject to a 18% buyer’s fee.