Nero, 54-68, and Domitian, 81-96. 2 conjoined cast 'Limes'-Asses (Bronze, 47 mm, 8.43 g, 6 h), irregular mint, after 87. A highly interesting and unusual set. Some deposits and with a minor casting fault on the Nero, otherwise, fine.


Nero, 65 (?):
[NERO AVG CA]ESAR GERM [IMP] (?) Laureate head of Nero to left. Rev.S - C Victory flying left, holding shield inscribed S P Q R with both hands. Cf. BMC 245, Cohen 288 abd RIC 313 (for possible prototype).

Domitian, 87:
IMP CAES DO[MIT AVG GE]RM COS XIII C[ENS PER P P] Laureate head of Domitian to right. Rev.MONE[TA AVGVSTI] / S - C Moneta standing front, head to left, holding scales in her right hand and cornucopiae in her left. Cf. BMC 402, Cohen 329 and RIC 547 (for prototype).

Find spots indicate that so-called Limes-falsa - crude cast copies of Roman bronze coinage - were probably produced as emergency money at military sites along the northern frontier, perhaps when supplies of officially struck coins were temporarily interrupted. Their workmanship is usually poor, and they were likely meant less as counterfeits than as a stopgap until regular coin arrived again.

Our piece(s) is especially instructive because it shows the casting process clearly. Official coins were pressed into clay to make moulds, which were then filled with molten base metal. To speed things up, moulds were often made for several coins at once; after cooling, the clay was broken and the individual casts separated.

In this case, that last step never happened: the two asses - one copied from Nero, the other from Domitian - remain joined. The pair may have been rejected as defective (the 'Nero' also shows a clear casting void) and discarded. For us, that’s a lucky survival: it gives a rare glimpse of Limes-falsa production and also hints at what was in circulation, since the two prototype coins are more than twenty years apart.