I have a few loves in my life, beyond family and friends. Animals. Meaningful travel. Trinkets, old coins, and stamps. Stories and tales rooted in fact, embellished with fiction. These loves, I romance. I spend my time with each of them, making them my own, giving them parts of me. It is intimacy cultivated, beyond superficial love. My love for animals has made me an animal welfare enthusiast and rescuer to the point where I’ve lovingly dubbed my rescue cats and foster babies ‘my zoo’. My desire to travel is translated into various escapades beyond my backyard, and sometimes within. My hunger for stories is satiated by seeking solace in the pages of history and travels of self and others. My near-obsession with collecting trinkets has led me to little shops – some charming, some dingy, in dim alleys and brightly lit corridors across the world, to find little pieces of something that would soon become my pieces of something.
And somehow, on a mundane March evening, I found three of my loves amalgamate, beckoning me with a quiet yet powerful summon.
Via an email.
As a marketer and writer by profession, I appreciate a well-crafted and thoughtfully targeted piece of communication, no matter the channel. Yet, there’s no way that one of my favourite Indian jewellery projects knew how much I adore travel, tales, and trinkets, even more so when they all find common ground in serendipity. So, while the email from Lune announcing their vintage jewellery capsule aptly titled Fuckers made its way to the right audience, the fact that this is exactly the kind of jewellery that I would purchase and flaunt because it unites three of my passion points is not good marketing alone. It’s serendipity.
A popular theory states that these coins are called spintriae, and served as tokens to either pay for or access the workspace of the world’s oldest profession – prostitution. Made from bronze or brass, each spintria possesses a position and erotic motifs on one face of the coin and a Roman numeral on the other. It was forbidden to bring coins with the Roman emperor’s likeness into a brothel, which could explain the depiction of sexual acts. Or, it was used to pay for the service depicted.
I’m not a believer in coincidences. This may be foolish, but I like to look for meaning in occurrences, and patterns in seemingly random instances. I’ve always wanted to travel. It wasn’t until my late 20s that I made it happen. In the meantime, I kept myself satisfied with objects that spoke of far-off lands. My mum’s collection of old stamps and coins, for instance. Or books that are equal parts truth and tale. With Position V from the collection, I saw my past yearning for travel, my present adventures and my future plans of exploring the world all come together, the golden sheen reflecting a tomorrow that is full of abundant experiences.
They are said to have been minted in the 1 Century AD, between 22 and 37 AD, during the reign of the emperor Tiberius, maybe even earlier. Another theory states that these weren’t brothel tokens or currency at all, but pieces in a game, whose rules we do not know. Or perhaps, they have merely evolved into today’s erotic ‘games for couples’.
The vintage coins, sourced from one of the largest flea markets in India, have gone through painstaking restoration, a face-lift of sorts. Yet, I can sense the weight of the ancient stories they carry – including a version that says the coins were used as payment for the service imprinted – as I wear my piece around my neck. The erotica on the coins is typical of the unabashed nature of the people of those times, and although the coins are of Roman origin, this confident display was common in the Greeks and ancient Indians as well. Cheeky boudoir themes transcend geographical distinctions!
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Rome has always been on my list of places to travel to. I’m taking my time with the planning and execution of it because a hurried and harried plan will only leave me mentally, emotionally, and financially weak. So, I like to think of my Position V as a tool to manifest a slow, untamed, and romantic summer in Rome.
I plan to don my piece wherever I go, turning its faces in relation to with whom I will be spending my time – the face with the ‘position’ for friends and norms-subverting individuals so that we may have a giggle and a lengthy discourse, the face with V reserved for family. I’m as two-faced as the coin. 🙂
I’m most excited about wearing my piece of Lune’s Fuckers during my travels. I’m eyeing some offbeat destinations in India and some tried-and-tested ones beyond the borders, where I’ll proudly showcase from my collection of travel trinkets, this personal treasure. I’m curious and eager to discover what conversations the restored vintage coin will spark, and what memories this piece of metal that made its way from ancient Rome to Mumbai’s Chor Bazaar to hallowed workshops and now to my jewellery box, will create.
You can shop the limited collection by Lune here.
