SimonW

There is no plugged hole but some scratches above the head. BAC usually has retail starting prices and, thus, does not sell a lot. They are offering the same coins over and over again. Given the current market situation, 3'800 EUR is not overly expensive, but not cheap either. I think you can get a better one for the same amount with some patience.

Thank you for showing those two, @Severus Alexander.

What function Tesserae served (be it lead or bronze) is mostly unknown AFAIK. There are lots of speculations (gifts, game tokens, entrance tokens, etc.), but nothing tangible. I believe the word Tessera in (ancient) numismatics is used interchangeably with anything coin-like with unknown purpose.

The first one is Cohen VIII, p. 273, 62. It has VL (ligate) on the obverse and N on the reverse. There are many variations of this kind of Tesserae with different letters and other motives, such as galley, etc. You can find some of them in Cohen (same range of numbers as your piece). They somehow remind me of the Spintriae (another group of Tesserae with mostly erotic scenes on one side and numerals on the other) but likely were issued later. Unfortunately, yours looks as if some lines have been a bit strengthened (tooled).

The second one is probably not roman (the style of the letters does not fit). I was not able to fully identify it, but it reminds me of Italian coins from the 12th-14th centuries with an omega over one or two letters:

https://www.acsearch.info/search.html?id=3641764 
https://www.acsearch.info/search.html?id=4767682
https://www.acsearch.info/search.html?id=5636019
https://www.acsearch.info/search.html?id=6124145
https://www.acsearch.info/search.html?id=6625404

I informed Vico about the wrong description, but they didn't change it.

Here is one of the letter-series from my collection:

Anonymous, Tessera (3.33 g), Rome, 1st-2nd century AD.
Obv. Galley r. Rev. T. Cohen VIII, p. 272, 57.

There seems to be another one with a plugged hole, IMO. Lot 1072, the rare Probus Aureus. Although I don't have a before picture or a picture of a coin from the same dies, the areas between 12 and 1 o'clock on the obverse and 11 to 12 o'clock on the reverse look quite characteristic: strange looking soft letters and slightly different colored and smoothed fields. The overall look and wear is typical for Aurei comming from the Ukraine (almost all of which are holed/plugged).

Does anyone have access to a picture of the cited coin in the Hermitage Museum that appears to be from the same obverse die?

That's a very nice Quadrans, @Octavius!

On 9/8/2022 at 2:45 AM, Aleph said:

I am very interested to go through the article and the sale systematically to if I can find more matches, but haven’t yet done so.

You definitely should, @Aleph. I just went through a few older catalogues this morning and found five pretty cool pedigrees. If you have some time, also look at the following three catalogues. All of them have lots of fractions:

• Dr. Jacob Hirsch, Auction 18 (27.05.1907): 35 fractions (Tafel XXII-XXIII)
• Naville & Cie, Auction 2 (12.06.1922): 29 fractions
• Münzhandlung Basel, Auction 1 (28.06.1934): 46 fractions

Here are two of the ones I found today:

Anonymous, Quadrans (3.50 g), Rome, 81-161 AD.
Obv. Bust of Mars, helmeted, r., cuirassed. Rev. S – C, cuirass. RIC 19.
Ex Dr. Jacob Hirsch, Auctions 18 (27.05.1907), Lot 1804

Domitianus, Quadrans (2.66 g), Rome, 84-85 AD.
Obv. IMP DOMIT AVG GERM, bust of Ceres l., draped. Rev. S – C, bundle of three poppies and four corn ears. RIC 243 (R).
Ex Münzhandlung Basel, Auction 1 (28.06.1934), Lot 557

On 9/8/2022 at 2:45 AM, Aleph said:

The recent Artemide auction was rough for me for the Nero listings.  It sounds like we may have been fighting for some of the same lots.

I am sure we have been fighting for the same few rare ones 🙂

On 9/8/2022 at 2:45 AM, Aleph said:

I’ll post a few more photos when I get some time.  The Trajan quadrans you posted at the start of this thread would be one of my favorites too!  You set a high bar with that one.

I thought I'd start this thread with something very unusual 😋 Looking forward to seeing more of your coins. Did you get my PM?

Thank you, Aleph! And congratulations on your great Mars type, which is still missing in my collection. This reminds me of when I wasn't able to bid on the same type in a Naville auction in 2016 because of a technical glitch. Hurts to this day.

1 hour ago, Aleph said:

I wouldn’t have bid it up if I knew it was you.😀. The Jacquier sale was fantastic but I got blown out of the water on most of the lots I bid on.  The competition was immense.

No problem at all. Although I would gladly have taken the coin at a lower price, I don't mind a good bidding battle 😀 Luckily I managed to snag a few more, although no less embattled. Did you notice the Mercury Quadrans in this sale that looked a lot like Hadrian? There are other cases I've noticed, such as a Jupiter eagle type on which Jupiter looks just like Antoninus Pius. Maybe just a coincidence, maybe some lead as to when those coins were actually minted.

1 hour ago, Aleph said:

When I begin collecting the minor fractions in the mid 2000s, I was a student and couldn’t afford many of the better coins.  Now I look back at all the rarities that I couldn’t bid on and am depressed!  So many that went for a couple hundred dollars then are now selling in the couple thousand range.  The early days of CNG e-sales in particular had some great pieces.

I can completely relate to that. I started collecting ancient coins around the same time (but started focusing on fractions a few years later). There have been lots of great coins and lost chances since then. All we can hope for is that they will come back to market in some years at a price that we can afford.

1 hour ago, Aleph said:

A number of my coins come from the James Lamb collection.  His Picus article identifies a good portion of his collection which was sold via CNG in the late 1990s (but not credited to him in the sale).

Do you recall which auction number it was? CNG has sold two larg fractions collection around that time (Sale 49 and 53). I only got one coin that was sold in CNG 49, but purchased it many years later, also from CNG.

Domitianus, Quadrans (2.31 g), Rome, 84-85 AD.
Obv. IMP DOMIT AVG GERM, trophy. Rev. S – C, olive branch. RIC 247 (R).
Ex Classical Numismatic Group, Auction 49 (17.03.1999), Lot 1359

1 hour ago, Aleph said:

Between us, we must have dozens of unpublished types!  Nero’s reign especially continues to turn up unpublished varieties.

For Nero I only have 7 varieties that are not listed in RIC, but bought 1 or 2 more in a recent Artemide auction. I believe Nero produced the highest number of different imperial fraction types/varieties (at least according to RIC numbers), although not the most intersting ones.

1 hour ago, Aleph said:

Did you get the second Hercules anonymous semis sold at Roma?

Do you mean this one? If so, then no. I've bought mine in an Aureo & Calico auction in 2018.

Anonymous, Quadrans (2.97 g), Rome, 81-161 AD.
Obv. Bust of Hercules, l., wearing lion-skin. Rev. S – C, club. RIC -.
Ex Aureo & Calicó, Auction 311 (31.05.2018), Lot 40

7 hours ago, Aleph said:

The anonymous series is littered with great rarities once you get past the Venus, Minerva, Mars, and Jupiter types.

Absolutely. And even the more common groups/types have lots of exceedingly rare sub-types and smaller variations. Many of them completely unrecorded. Here's one of the Jupiter group. I must have been bidding against you or another fractions collector as the price went way beyond what I would have imagined.

Anonymous, Quadrans (17-18 mm, 3.31 g), Rome, 81-161 AD.
Obv. Head of Jupiter, laureate, bearded, r. Rev. S – C, eagle stg. left on thunderbolt, wings closed, head r., wreath in beak. RIC 1 var. (eagle with wings spread, no wreath in beak); van Heesch 12 var. (no wreath in beak); Mlasowsky 15.

Or the following special type of the Minerva group, which looks like a combination of two reverse types, but is not a mule in my opinion as there is no S C on the owl-side.

Anonymous, Quadrans (2.37 g), Rome, 81-161 AD.
Obv. Owl standing l. Rev. S – C, olive tree. RIC -; van Heesch -.

2 hours ago, Aleph said:

The Trajan wolf and twins type is deceptive.  Cathy king reports either 1 or none (I don’t have the article handy) found in the Tiber, while the contemporaneous Hercules issue is more common.  This at first seems odd considering how common the wolf and twins type is today.  However, this is misleading.  Long ago, Curtis Clay mentioned on Forvm that before the fall of the iron curtain, the wolf and twins type was actually rare.

That's a very interesting observation I wasn't aware of. Same thing is currently happening with coins minted for circulation in Syria as well as the Hadrian Semis (or Quadrans?) with eagle/thunderbolt.

Congratulations on both your Domitian Quadrans (I remember this one, but wasn't bidding on it for once 🙂) and your Hadrian Semis/offstrike, which I have never seen before. One of my white whales is this one:

Anonymous, Quadrans (15-16 mm, 2.85 g), Rome, 81-161 AD.
Obv. Bust of Mercury, draped, wearing winged petasus, l., caduceus behind. Rev. S – C, rooster r. RIC 30 (C). Göbl, Antike Numismatik, Taffel 10, 148D (this coin).
Ex Dr. Jacob Hirsch, Auctions 18 (27.05.1907), Lot 1802.

Funnily, RIC rates this as "common".

6 hours ago, Aleph said:

One of the top coins among my white whales is the quadrans below.

Unfortunately, your picture doesn't show (seems to be a permission issue as the link shows an "Access Denied" warning from the cloud storage where it's hosted).

6 hours ago, Aleph said:

And I spoke too soon on the pius quadrans!  My example has the COSIII reverse so RIC713- yours I have never seen?!  I am glad you are snagging these from Heritage.  These should go to a dedicated collector for sure.

Thank you, Aleph. Yes, it has a different reverse legend and the S C is missing. Although the missing S C is not completely uncommon for fractions, the fact that the type exists as a Denarius and the oversized flan make this rather an offstrike than a Semis in my opinion. Heritage "estimated" the weight at 3.5-4.5 gramms because it was in an NGC slab, which was kind of funny. Turned out to be more than 5 gramms 🙂

6 hours ago, Aleph said:

For the question of semis vs quadrans, I think much of the debate misses a key point.  The major distinction is portrait vs non portrait, not semis vs quadrans.  There are clearly ‘larger’ denomination non-portrait quadrantes, ie semises, in the post Vespasian period.  Metal is also important, that is orichalum vs bronze.  This feature is often obscured as patina can make it difficult to tell what the metal is.  Portrait minor denominations all seem to have been distributed outside of Italy.  It seems clear that sub-As denominations were not strictly part of the monetary system after Vespasian but rather must have been special distributions with a token like purpose, so something like redeemable for entrance to the baths or perhaps a meal at a street cafe.  As evidence, of the many price listings found at Pompeii, not indicate a cost less than an as or fractions above an as- so no 1 1/2 As.  The dearth of minor coins would also suggest that the minor fractions were not part of general circulation.  Circumstantially, even in the earlier JulioClaudian period which saw the issue of quadrantes, no semises were issued at Rome for nearly a century from the death of Julius Caesar, until the time of Nero which was very experimental in the minor fractions.  Why is this significant?  Well the sestertius, dupondius, and as were multiples of two so it is conspicuous that semises were not produced while quadrantes were if the minor fractions were part of the denomination system.  Maybe the smaller denomination were covered by imitative and token issues.  I am not up on the scholarship here though so I don’t know the current academic consensus…

That's a very insteresting theory. If it were only for the less common fractions after Vespasian, I could probably reconcile with that idea. The huge number of certain fractions (e.g. some anonymous types, Trajan & wolf, etc.), however, rather speak against it, in my opinion.

1 hour ago, Aleph said:

I am guessing I have been up against you in a lot of bidding competitions !😀

It looks like it 😄

1 hour ago, Aleph said:

Here is a recent pickup up from CNG.  The first example I have seen in the trade.

 

I was bidding on this one, too 😅 Congratulations on your win! Glad to see another fractions collector got it. I bought some of the fractions lots they offered instead. Here is one I got with another rare Tessera (top row, second from right):

Looking forward to see more of your coins.

3 hours ago, Aleph said:

This is an exceptionally rare coin!  You would have had strong competition if the Hrritage sale was better publicized.😇

I'm happy you didn't notice then 🙂 Heritage has some hidden treasures in their weekly auctions from time to time. I was surprised about the low hammer, especially since Hadrian is a particularly sought after emperor.

Here's another one I bought from them recently:
 

Antoninus Pius, Semis [or Denarius offstrike] (20 mm, 5.36 g), Rome, 139 AD.
Obv. ANTONINVS AVG PIVS P P, bare head of Antoninus Pius r. Rev. TR POT COS II, modius with two corn ears and poppy. RIC -, cf. 58 (denarius).
Ex Heritage Auctions, Auction 232226 (29.06.2022), Lot 65244

If anyone is interested in more examples of plugged roman coins (mostly Aurei), there is a thread dedicated to this topic on the German Numismatikforum:

https://www.numismatikforum.de/viewtopic.php?f=6&t=59785

12 hours ago, Severus Alexander said:

Indeed it does; @SimonW posted one earlier in this thread, in fact:

 

Although, and that's missing on my earlier post, this rare type may be a mule. All four examples that I know are from the same dies:

https://www.forumancientcoins.com/catalog/roman-and-greek-coins.asp?param=13602q00.jpg&vpar=409&zpg=11715&fld=
https://www.forumancientcoins.com/catalog/roman-and-greek-coins.asp?zpg=108417
https://www.collection.ly/9QjWzTLtrW/53GdaZGGBh
https://www.collection.ly/9QjWzTLtrW/7Pciu5J2yx

Edit:

Just found a fifth example of the type on @Valentinian's very informative website:
http://augustuscoins.com/ed/quadrans/TrajanQuadransHercWolfLeft.jpg (same dies as well, I believe)

For Hadrian there is a particularly high number of exceptionally intriguing and rare coins. Here is RIC 626, the only one I have seen on the market for decades:

Hadrianus, Semis (3.31 g), Rome, 119-123 AD.
Obv. IMP CAESAR TRAIAN HADRIANVS AVG, bust of Hadrianus, laureate, r., draped, cuirassed. Rev. P M TR P COS III, bust of Minerva, helmeted, r., draped, wearing aegis. RIC 626 (R).
Ex Heritage, Auction 231926, Lot 64103

Thank you very much for sending me the two papers, @Severus Alexander! 🙂 

On 8/13/2022 at 8:56 AM, Severus Alexander said:

I'm guessing they must have been pretty attuned to both the relative values of copper and orichalcum, and (given the metal, which would have been obvious) it does sound like they could go by size to a certain extent, at least within a restricted time range.  It seems they didn't tend to circulate far outside the city they were meant for, too, so people could learn quickly which types had which values.

Since the fractions were in circulation for several decades - if not centuries sometimes -, and the size of Quadrantes and Semisses partly overlap and also change over time, I highly doubt that the average roman citizen was able to tell the difference based on a specific type (there must have been dozens of different types in circulation at the same time) or a combination of metal, size and/or weight (in some cases, the differences are too small to tell without exact measuring). If they were, why bother to use a crown on Dupondii or Antoniniani?

It must have been something obvious. Thus, for fractions circulating in Rome, I am a big supporter of the rule of thumb: with emperor's head = Semis, without emperor's head = Quadrans. Of course there are exceptions, as are with Dupondii.

On 8/13/2022 at 8:56 AM, Severus Alexander said:

I wonder if Nero's reform involved a massive recoinage?

Good question.

Thank you very much, @YOTHR 🙂 

Thank you very much for sharing the Giles F. Carter and C.E. King papers, @Severus Alexander. I wasn't aware of them. Would you be able to email them to me? I don't have a JSTOR account.

If there were both copper and orichalcum versions of certain Quadrantes/Semisses types, how did the average roman citizen distinguish them? There must be a certain criteria that's easy to spot.

51 minutes ago, Severus Alexander said:

It would be interesting to compile a dataset... is there any way of getting that more easily through the acsearch back end, @SimonW?

I could certainly provide a list with descriptions and images. Unfortunately, descriptions are unstructured data and you would have to use some algorithm to extract weights and diameters.

51 minutes ago, Severus Alexander said:

Note: @Roman Collector, I don't think that 8.64g Hadrian with Roma seated can possibly be a semis... it must be an As.  Is there a catalogue number for a Hadrian As of that type?

I believe this is RIC 759, RPC III 3761. It's another one produced for circulation in Syria. I would simply adopt Woytek's denomination classification for Hadrian as well. In this case AE-23/25.

Here's its small brother 🙂 

Hadrianus, AE-19/21 (19 mm, 3.57 g), Rome (for circulation in Syria), 124-127 AD.
Obv. HADRIANVS AVGVSTVS, bust of Hadrianus, laureate, r., draped, cuirassed, seen from behind. Rev. COS III / S C (ex.), Roma seated l. on cuirass, holding Victory in right hand and spear in left; shield at her side. RIC 760 (C). RPC III 3765.

7 hours ago, Curtis JJ said:

I think that's clearly what Ken meant (not on purpose), but thanks for sharing those.

I am sure that's what Ken meant. But I find it highly important to stress that there is no certainty or guarantee with slabs (although the name Numismatic Guaranty Company says so). Slabing an ancient coin is basically just getting a paid opinion (usually a good one, though), nothing more.

7 hours ago, Curtis JJ said:

But I'm curious to know if there's any information about when those ones were slabbed?

I don't know about the first link, but the one in my second link above was slabbed in 2021:

https://www.acsearch.info/search.html?id=7922678
https://www.acsearch.info/search.html?id=8979394

2 hours ago, KenDorney said:

... but does not slab fakes.

Yes, they do slab fakes, just not on purpose. In the german Numismatikforum a member has just recentyl posted two:

https://www.numismatikforum.de/viewtopic.php?p=567562#p567562
https://www.numismatikforum.de/viewtopic.php?p=567615#p567615

Opisthodomos is run by two persons. One of them disappeard completely a few months ago and the other one does either not care about handling invoices and shipping coins or is not capable to. Not sure if the guy who did the work is back as new items have been listed, but I wouldn't bet any money that you actually will see any of the coins you buy from them.

6 hours ago, TheTrachyEnjoyer said:

This store has just listed a ton of basilikons for 40£ each. Im not sure if sharing deals is allowed. If not, Mods feel free to take this down

I strongly recommend not to buy from this seller.

10 hours ago, Severus Alexander said:

Still hoping for an answer to my second question, @SimonW, about distinguishing semisses from quadrantes.  Might the die diameter/dotted border diameter do the trick, at least within a particular reign?  Or if I'm looking for a 2nd century semis should I just rely on weight and diameter, and get the biggest one I can find?  (If there's a type after the early 2nd century that is known for certain to be a semis, I'd love to hear it.)

Sorry, @Severus Alexander, I completely missed that question.

To be honest, I actually can't tell. You can clearly not rely on size and weight. There is a huge variance for both. Standard reference books usually distinguish the two based on their metal (copper/red = Quadrans, brass/yellow = Semis). Since most of my coins have a patina, it's hard to tell. But I have some where you can see the metal. There are some yellowish that are supposed to be Quadrantes and some reddish that are supposed to be Semisses and then there are some that are more of an orange and you can't really tell what metal it's supposed to be. So I don't know how reliable the metal is. 

As a rule of thumb: if it has the emperor's face on it, it's a Semis, otherwise a Quadrans. For my records, I generally use the denomination given in RIC. For coins issued under Trajan/Hadrian for circulation in Syria, I use Woytek's classification: "AE-19/21" for the smaller denomination (19-21 mm) and "AE-23/25" for the bigger denomination (23-25 mm). Some call them Semis and Dupondius, but I agree with Woytek that those terms rather don't fit.

And here are a few of the rather confusing examples (as to metal <-> denomination):

Anonymous, Quadrans (4.31 g), Rome, 81-161 AD.
Obv. Bust of Mars, helmeted, r., cuirassed and draped, seen from behind. Rev. S – C, cuirass. RIC 19 var. (bust draped and seen from behind).

Hadrianus, Semis (3.42 g), Rome, 124-127 AD.
Obv. HADRIANVS AVGVSTVS, bust of Hadrianus, laureate, r., draped, cuirassed, seen from behind. Rev. COS III / S C (ex.), legionary eagle between two standards. RIC 888b var. (bust draped, cuirassed, seen from behind).

Titus (as Caesar under Vespasianus), Quadrans (16-17 mm, 3.02 g), Syria/Rome, 74 AD.
Obv. T CAES IMP, head of Titus, laureate, r. Rev. PON TR POT, winged caduceus. RIC 1575 (R2). RPC II 1998.

8 hours ago, TheTrachyEnjoyer said:

This was 375 CHF IIRC (maybe 325-350? One of the 25 CHR Increments in the 300s for sure).

Here you go, in case you need it for your records:
https://www.acsearch.info/search.html?id=8080370

Ex NAC and Gorny & Mosch:
https://www.acsearch.info/search.html?id=5294048
https://www.acsearch.info/search.html?id=1877479

Those are very cool Augustus Quadrantes, @Justin Lee. When I started collecting the small denominations, my collection would start with Nero. It was only later that I learned to appreciate the early ones, too.

That's a very nice rhino, @DonnaML. There are 4 variations of this type in total (rhino l. or r. and reverse legend starting at 6 or 12 o'clock).

Thank you, @Severus Alexander. I love your Trajan/Hercules Quadrans. I have quite a few of them, but none as nice as yours 🙂

Regarding the Trajan Decius Semis: I think the point NGC makes is about the radiate coins (Dupondii?) that weigh about the same as the "Asses". You could argue that they are both Asses or both Dupondii. Or they are Asses and Dupondii and the weight simply doesn't matter. Now, the Sestertii weigh about half what the double Sestertii do on average, I would say. So calling all the coins that weigh half a Sestertius "Dupondius" and the smallest denomination "As" or "reduced As" is not completely unlogical. The fact that there haven't been any Semisses for almost a century inbetween adds to that theory.

As a collector of Semisses, however, I still like to believe that they are Semisses 🙂

Here is mine:

Traianus Decius, Semis (3.41 g), Rome, 249-251 AD.
Obv. IMP C M Q TRAIANVS DECIVS AVG, bust of Traianus Decius, laureate, r., cuirassed. Rev. S – C, Mars, helmeted, in military attire, standing left, resting right hand on shield and holding vertical spear in left hand. RIC 128 (S).
Ex Numismatica Ars Classica, Auction 64, lot 2703

That's a particularly nice coin for the type, @maridvnvm. I probably was tempted to clean those earthern deposits 🙂

Great types, @Roman Collector. There is a large variety of those anonymous Quadrantes. Here is one of my favourites.

Anonymous, Quadrans (3.57 g), Rome, 81-161 AD.
Obv. Bust of Minerva, helmeted, r., draped. Rev. S – C, olive tree. RIC 9 (C).
Ex. Roma Numismatics, E-Sale 69, lot 943

Wish you all a great weekend!

6 hours ago, DonnaML said:

@SimonW, the last thing I want is to get into some sort of prolonged argument with you or anyone else.  I actually hate arguing on the Internet, contrary to what some might assume from the fact that I practiced law for a long time!  Especially here, in a forum that was formed in large part to escape the contentiousness that recently typified the other place. So I apologize for the harshness of my response to your characterization of my comments.  Please try to understand that I find being inaccurately accused of something to be extremely upsetting. I think most people here would agree that I am not someone who constantly complains about sellers or anything else, and I hate the idea that anyone would think that's who I am.

In fact, the comment you quote wasn't a complaint, and certainly wasn't intended to be "sarcastic." I was trying to make the point, in the form of a hyperbolic joke about a little old lady in Winterthur -- a joke which some people, at least, thought was funny! -- that the reasonableness of a possible 10-day wait for shipping depends on how many employees Leu has devoting their time to the task of sending packages out. Please keep in mind that I made this comment on Wed. July 27,  before I learned on Friday July 29 that the package had been shipped out, and that their customer service employee had gone on vacation (which I learned from an automated response to my inquiry that day about the package having an incorrect address).  So the comment you quote had nothing whatsoever to do with the vacation issue. Please also keep in mind that my original comment was simply a question about whether Leu really does take 10 days to ship, since I had never made a purchase from Leu before. As it turned out, they shipped the package on July 29, only four days after notifying me on July 25 that it might take 10 days. So that inquiry became moot. 

Also, I never said anything remotely supporting the idea that I complained that "how does anybody dare going on vacation a week after their auction." I think it's terribly unfair for you to keep making that accusation. As I've explained three times now, my only complaint regarding the vacation, when I learned of it on July 29, concerned the customer service person's email account apparently (according to her response) being left unmonitored while she was away. I didn't say a single word complaining about the vacation itself. And I assure you that as an employee myself for more than 35 years before I retired, I fully support the concept of vacations!  But if I wasn't responding to emails myself during a vacation, I always made sure that someone else was available to cover for me if anything came up while I was away. It's the responsible thing to do for anyone who works in a firm with more than one employee, whether one's business is auctioning coins or practicing law.  In any event, as you know, her email was in fact being monitored, so that issue turned out to be moot as well.

In other words, both as to the time taken to ship, and as to monitoring emails to customer service during an employee vacation, what Leu actually did was far more customer-friendly than their cautionary words suggested.  In this case, the truism that "actions speak louder than words" certainly applies. But there was nothing untoward about my raising questions about those words, before the actions were actually taken.

I think I've said everything I have to say, and have no wish to continue any dispute with you.

 

Thank you for clarifying, @DonnaML.

What upsets me is when colleagues, who I know work very hard, are made fun of. Be that sarcasm or a hyperbolic joke. 

I still don't agree with everything you say, but I'll leave it at this.