Sale: CNG 66, Lot: 3. Estimate $400.  Closing Date: Wednesday, 19 May 2004.  Sold For $390. This amount does not include the buyer’s fee.

CELTIC, Gaul. Senones. Circa 100-60 BC. AV Stater (7.15 gm). Gallo-Belgic Bullet Type. Small cross in center of plain globule with prominent rim / Plain reverse. D&T -; Scheers pg, 308, 15; De la Tour pl. XXXIX, V, 28; Allen/Nash 159. Good VF, golden gold, outstanding cross. ($400)

From the Michael Richards Collection. Ex Hugh Munden Collection.

The two most unusual aspects of the Gallo-Belgic Bullet are its globular shape and lack of decoration, apart from a small cross on one side. C. Rudd believes that these two aspects are linked and provide the clue to its meaning. The closest parallel in ancient iconography is the royal orb: a lobe surmounted by a vertical cross with arms of equal length. The globe symbolises the world or the sun. The cross symbolises all four directions, in both space (north, south, east, and west) and time (past and future, this world and the other-world). The color of this particular globe clearly emphasizes its solar nature and the cross may also represent a wheel, another sun sign (sheet-bronze vessels found at Hallstatt, Austria, were decorated with repoussé crosses and solar wheels in association). So the main message of the Gallo-Belgic Bullet may be that the ruler who authorised its production had power in every direction, ‘everywhere under the sun.’ A cross-on-globe symbol also occurs on a bronze coin of the Ambiani, De la Tour 8503. D. Nash says these globule à la croix coins are "typologically unique - the product perhaps of a community which viewed itself, with reason, as an independent regional leader." C. Haselgrove dates Gallo-Belgic Bullets circa 200-125 BC (his Stage 2) and says: "This series has a dispersed distribution and its territory of origin may be slightly to the south of Belgic Gaul. ("The Development of Iron Age Coinage in Belgic Gaul," NumChron 1999, pg.132).