Superb and Lustrous

Sale: Triton XI, Lot: 749. Estimate $30000.  Closing Date: Monday, 7 January 2008.  Sold For $67500. This amount does not include the buyer’s fee.

Augustus. 27 BC-AD 14. AV Aureus (7.88 g, 6h). Spanish mint - Emerita. Struck 19-18 BC. AVGVSTVS, bare head right / S • P • Q • R across field, Victory flying facing, head left, wings spread, holding with both hands a round shield inscribed CL • V. RIC I -; Calicó 287; BMCRE -; BMCRR Rome -; BN -. Superb EF, lustrous and lightly toned, small “owner’s mark” in lower left field on reverse. Extremely rare, apparently the second known.

From the Michael F. Price Collection (Stack’s, 3 December 1996), lot 105.

The example illustrated in Calicó was sold in Leu 87 (6 May 2003), lot 1 = Numismatic Fine Arts XXII (1 June 1989), lot 30. That example also exhibited the same “owner’s mark” on the reverse, which is also visible on lot 761 below.

Victory is holding the golden shield, the clypeus virtutis, that the Senate presented to Augustus in 26 BC.