2.65 G, 12 MM, Tag Says 400-250 BC Aes Rude Italy:

My first thought is that definitively genuine aes rude (i.e. with archaeological context) is normally much larger. The question you pose is a good one. Without archaeological context, how does one distinguish authentic Italian aes rude from random bits of bronze scrap 200 years old from China, for example, or 1000 years old from India or 5000 years old from Mesopotamia? I've asked this question elsewhere a number of times and have never received a satisfactory answer.

Here is the second one from the estate lot. (There were only two.) I measured about 30 mm long and with a decent simple displacement with a beaker and graduated cylinder and eye dropper I get 32.09g/4.50 ml = Density of about 7.1 g/ml. So it is a metal ingot in the bronze range and there is a green patina and a completely flat edge.

Wow, 100 pounds of these things used to get you an Ox or 100 Sheep! From a past Agora reference. Cool.

"Fifth century Rome saw the official valuation of bronze at equivalents of oxen and sheep, when in c. 450 the decemvirs codified the Roman Law in the famous 'Twelve Tablets' which recognized the bronze currency in use in central Italy (i.e., 1000 Asserae = 1 ox, 100 lbs of bronze = 1 ox, 10 Asserae = 1 sheep, etc). A system of barter with copper objects had long existed in central Italy where copper was plentiful and valued while silver was rare and gold non-existent. The Italic population had produced Aes Rude from very early times and they are often found in hoards of votive deposits to divinities of fountains and rivers from the first half of the 1st millennium B.C. to the end of the 4th century B.C."

(1 Sheep/1) x (10 Asserae/1 Sheep) x (1 Ox/1000 Asserae)
x (100 Pounds Bronze /1 Ox) = So One Pound gets one sheep
and I have a 32 gram piece so 454g/32g = 14 so
once I have about 13 more of these Rudes and I get myself a sheep!

In my more than 50 years of my numismatic life,
I have never seen an example of aes signatum offered for sale.

You know if you think about what people trade for other things, a lump of Bronze would have been a pretty handy thing to have. If it did not have a set value like a coin the commodity could be used by someone to make a small knife or odd little tool without having to start out smelting out the Copper from the sulfide rock. The bronze age in my opinion never really ends if you look at how poorly iron holds up with time compared to bronze. All the way through middle ages you see so much bronze work these lumps would be so important for. At first they are just another commodity available at the market like wheat or wood, cloth. The exact time Rome officially put a mark of value on these something major happened and they became money. So although these worked as money, so did a basket of fruit or a bundle of wood.