392, Lot: 522. Estimate $200. Sold for $220. This amount does not include the buyer’s fee.

Vitellius. AD 69. AR Denarius (18mm, 2.72 g, 6h). Rome mint. Struck circa late April-20 December. Laureate head right / Libertas standing facing, head right, holding pileus and vindicta. RIC I 105; RSC 47. Near VF, toned, some minor roughness.

From the Collection of a Director. Purchased from Schweizerische Kreditanstalt, Zürich.

According to A Dictionary of Ancient Roman Coins by John Melville Jones, “Libertas”, the vindicta, which Libertas carries, was “the rod with which a slave was touched during the ceremony of manumission or liberation.”