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Denomination: Denarius
Era: c. 209-208 BC
Metal: AR
Obverse: Helmeted head of Roma r. with peaked visor; “X” behind; Border of dots
Reverse: Dioscuri r.; below, wheel symbol; in linear frame, “ROMA”.
Mint: Sicily (?)
Weight: 4.22 gm.
Reference: Crawford 79/1
Provenance: Nigrini Asta Publica auction 35, JUN-2012, lot 145
Comments: Crawford 79/1 is the earliest issue to use the serrated edge. The serrations are cut into the edge of the flan prior to striking. This practice was first used with this issue but was abandoned for about 100 years until it was again routinely used in the minting of denari. It has been speculated that the purpose of the serrations was to discourage counterfeiting; however, many plated serrati exist. This in itself is not strong evidence of counterfeiting as plated coins are known to be struck with the same dies of fine silver official coins.
Michael Harlan in his book “Roman Republican Moneyers And Their Coins 81 BCE-64 BCE” suggest that the purpose of the serrations were to discourage mint workers from swallowing denari for later retrieval.
Both of these purpose theories are plausible. Some suggested theories of manufacturing techniques are not plausible. Mint workers could not have applied these serrations manually with a chisel. The economics of this are unbelievable as the cost in effort to apply serrations manually to each coin would increase more than 20 times. There must have been some sort of primitive machine that flans were fed into that cut the serrations.
The present coin has a small flan crack across Roma’s chin and very minor corrosion from 9 to 11 on obverse. Otherwise it is well centered and EF.
Coleção : Symbols -Early anonymous Roman silver coins with symbols and Mintmarks