Roman Coins from the Archer M. Huntington Collection

Triton XVII, Lot: 490. Estimate $1000. Sold for $2450. This amount does not include the buyer’s fee.

Anonymous. Circa 225-212 BC. AR Didrachm – Quadrigatus (23mm, 6.68 g, 12h). Rome mint. Laureate head of Janus; curved truncation / Jupiter, hurling thunderbolt with right hand and holding scepter in left, in quadriga right driven by Victory; ROMA incuse on raised tablet in exergue. Crawford 28/3; Sydenham 64a; Kestner 88-90, 92-5; BMCRR Romano-Campanian 78-88; RSC 23. Good VF, toned, traces of deposits on reverse.

Through his collecting of Roman Republican and Imperial coinage, Huntington demonstrated the subtlety of his complex understanding of Spain through numismatics. Working to assemble a collection of coins not only only struck in Spain or by Spanish authority, he also wanted to include coins which circulated throughout the country, as well as coins of Spanish relevance that circulated elsewhere. It was the presence of the Romans in Hispania, beginning in the second century BC, that helped to create the concept of a unified Spain later on. Much of Rome’s silver bullion for coinage came from Spain. The provinces there – Hispania Ulterior and Hispania Citerior – provided enormous wealth for the empire in olive oil and other resources. It even provided the first two non-Italian born emperors: Trajan (AD 97-117) and Hadrian (AD 117-138).

The coins offered from the Huntington Collection appear below with two separate designations, differentiated by the accession numbers, which have an HSA or ANS prefix. A sizable portion of Huntington’s collection was obtained by two anonymous benefactors for the ANS, and the previous HSA accession numbers were retained as the ANS accession number. Some of these coins, however, were found to be duplicates of better specimens already in the ANS Collection and are being offered for sale. A selection of these duplicates from one of the two collections now at the ANS are offered here, with the accession numbers prefaced with ANS. The ANS plans to put all known Huntington coins in a separate online database.

The following Roman Republican and Roman Imperial lots are from the Huntington Collection: 495, 497–513, 516, 517, 519–21, 524, 525, 527–9, 531–4, 536, 539–44, 546–51, 553–67, 569–75, 577, 578, 580, 581, 583, 584, 587–91, 594, 595, 597–9, 601–10, 621, 623, 624, 626, 631–5, 637, 638, 643, 648, 657, 660, 662, 663, 667, 675, 676, 678, 679, 681, 682, 684, 685, 690, 699–701, 729, 736, 747, 768, and 769.