Lustrous Aureus from the Bement Collection

Triton XIV, Lot: 645. Estimate $15000. Sold for $70000. This amount does not include the buyer’s fee.

Claudius. AD 41-54. AV Aureus (19mm, 7.70 g, 11h). Lugdunum (Lyon) mint. Struck AD 41-42. TI CLAVD • CAESAR • AVG • P • M • TR • P, laureate head right / IMPER RECEPT across top of front wall, view of the Praetorian Camp: in front is a wall with two small arched openings below and five battlements on top; above and behind it stands a soldier on guard looking left, holding spear in right hand; aquila to left; behind him is a pediment in which is a crescent, on two pillars, flanked left and right by walls, each with a battlement above and an arch below. RIC I 7; von Kaenel Type 2, 22, 28 (V14/R19 – this coin, illustrated); Lyon 5, 3a (D13/R12 - this coin); Calicó 359a (this coin, illustrated); BMCRE 5; BN 23; CNR XIV 76 (this coin, illustrated). EF, lustrous. A handsome and historically important coin.

From the C.K. Collection. Ex Classical Numismatic Group 60 (22 May 2002), lot 1525; Leu 2 (25 April 1972), lot 364; Clarence S. Bement Collection (Naville VIII, 25 June 1924), lot 620; G.H. Earle Collection (Chapman, 25 June 1912), lot 511; P. Steiner Collection (Sangiorgi, 11 April 1894), lot 177.

The Praetorian Camp was located to the northeast of Rome beyond the Servian Wall between the Porta Viminalis and the Porta Collina. Because Claudius was the first of a large number of emperors elevated to that position by the Praetorian Guard, he commemorated that occasion by depicting on aurei and denarii this reverse type, which reads IMPER RECEPT.