Denarius; Crawford 480/1 var!

Rome: 50, 44BCE. Diademed head of Venus Victrix (rt.), a variant of the usual with Venus not wearing a necklace. L BUCA along left. The rev. depicting “Sulla’s Dream.” A divine coin, extremely fine (transcendent for 480/1), dark and natural old cabinet toning. The strike is perfectly centered with no areas of flatness (highly unusual for this type). Crawford 480/1, listed by him as the first of all the denarii minted in Rome in 44 B.C. (probably mid–January right after the sesterti and quinari), and though Crawford covers his ass by footnoting his placing of it as “arbitrary” his 480 series continues with portraits of a living Caesar from Cr. 480/2 and never alters obverse portraits after that until after the Ides. I think there is no arbitrariness about it, as all other placements are awkward. In any case, quite a scarce coin with only 7 obv. and 7 rev. dies, and a rare one in such exceptional condition. Item #397

Authorities have long agreed that 480/1, was struck early in 44 B.C. There remains only lingering (quixotic?) debate about whether it was struck for Caesar, but this is a debate with all the life of last year’s moth shaken out of the curtains in an empty house, and I will not join it, preferring to save my ammunition for where it might do some good, and you may call my detachment from the matter ignorance, or you may call it apathy, but I don’t know and I don’t care. As for the next group (after Cr. 480/1) beginning with 480/17 (A through E), a rapidly declining rational argument against it being a lifetime issue has all but disappeared, leaving only the crusty stubborn, or the lazy detached, who continue to toe the traditionalist line, with more shrieks than crows thrown in a woodchipper, and virtually all open minded interested parties are now (or should be) rethinking the likelihood that it was also struck before Caesar's murder (actually, common sense now places it among the earliest portrait coins, perhaps as early as the 2nd portrait coin of all).

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