Etruria, uncertain mint (Populonia?) Æ 100 Units (Centesimae). Late 4th-3rd century BC. Laureate and bearded head of Tinia to right, ƆIC (mark of value) behind; all within dotted border within laurel wreath / Incuse hippocamp to right within border of waves. EC I, 1 (O-/R-); HN Italy 76; Vecchi IV, 24; HGC 1, 158. 42.99g, 42mm, 12h.

Extremely Fine; the finest known example. Extremely Rare; EC cites 7 examples, none have been auctioned in the past 20 years.

From the Vitangelo Collection.

The eighth published and by far the finest example known of this remarkable series demonstrates that even at this late date, the Etruscans could produce round art in the miniature equal to anything the classical Greek world had realised in Megálē Hellás.

The carefully engraved die struck bronze series cerebrating the Etruscan pantheon is characterized by wreath-bordered obverses and incuse reverses, clearly belongs to a single mint, possibly Populonia. The widely dispersed provenances are of little help in identifying the mint: Acanaro, Cecina, Cetona, Gravisca, Populonia, Valle d’Orcia, Valle Fuino di Cascia and Vetulonia. However, bronze cast and struck issues did predominate in central Etruria where four of the finds were made. The denominations are tariffed in centesimal marks of value from 100 down to a single unit, with the basic bronze unit on a standard somewhere between 0.6 and 1 gram. This may have been an attempt to divide a nominal as by centesimae rather than oncie as seen on the double denominated Populonia bronze series 139 with /X (11-units equated to a triens) and Populonia series 140 with X (= 10-units equated to a triens of lower weight) and the > or Ì (5-units) denominated bronzes from the Val di Chiana, HN Italy 72, 74 and 75. For an analysis of the metrological system employed by this group, see Hackens 1976, pp. 253-260.