Very Rare Carausius Denarius

Sale: Triton X, Lot: 761. Estimate $5000.  Closing Date: Monday, 8 January 2007.  Sold For $7000. This amount does not include the buyer’s fee.

Carausius. Romano-British Emperor, AD 286-293. AR Denarius (4.14 g, 6h). Uncertain mint. IMP CARAVSIVS P F A, laureate bust left, wearing imperial mantle, holding eagle-tipped scepter in right hand / VBERITAS AVG, Uberitas standing right, clasping right hands with a soldier (or Carausius?), standing left, holding spear in left hand; RSR. RIC V 589; Shiel 89; Casey -; RSC 101; Hunter 168. Near EF, wonderful metal quality and strike. Very rare.

RSR has traditionally been viewed as a mintmark, denoting either Rouen, Rotomagus, or a mint on the site of modern Richborough, where excavations have yielded the highest concentration of Carausius’ denarii at a single site. More recently, though, G. de la Bédoyère, ("Carausius and the Marks RSR and I.N.P.C.D.A.," NC 1998, pp. 79-88) has interpreted RSR as a quote from Virgil's Eclogues iv.6-7: Redeunt Saturnia Regna.