164, Lot: 144. Estimate $100. Sold for $240. This amount does not include the buyer’s fee.

Vespasian. AD 69-79. Æ As (25mm, 9.47 g). Rome mint. Struck AD 69-70. Laureate head of Vespasian right; aegis at shoulder / Titus and Domitian Caesars on horseback right. RIC II 391(Tarraco); BMCRE 750 (Tarraco); BN 469 (Rome). VF, dark green patina, rubbed to copper on high points.

This scarce type, attributed to the provincial mint of Tarraco in Spain by BMC and RIC, is in fact part of the first Flavian issue from Rome, when an official imago of the new emperor had yet to be delivered to the mint, and the engravers worked up a partly imaginary portrait. The reverse type delineates Vespasian’s early intentions to found a new dynasty.