320, Lot: 703. Estimate $100. Sold for $160. This amount does not include the buyer’s fee.

Commodus, with Annius Verus. Caesars, AD 166-177 and AD 166-169, respectively. Sulfur cast of a medallion made by Admiral William Henry Smyth (1788-1865) (33mm, 6.47 g, 12h). Rome mint. Bareheaded and draped bust of Commodus right / Bareheaded and draped bust of Annius Verus left. W.H. Smyth, Descriptive catalogue of a cabinet of Roman imperial large-brass medals (Bedford, 1834), p. 148, no. CCLXXIII. VF, as made with a few ragged edges.

A sailor, hydrographer, astronomer, author, and numismatist, British Admiral William Henry Smyth had a remarkable career. His twenty year service as a sailor took him around the Mediterranean, exposing him to other disciplines which he would devote himself to more fervently after 1824, when his naval career effectively ended. Most notable was his publication in 1844 of Cycle of Celestial Objects, which remained the standard astronomical reference for many years, and which earned him the Gold Medal of the Royal Astronomical Society and the presidency of the Society. Heavily involved in learned institutions throughout Europe, Smyth was one of the founders of both the Royal Geographic Society in 1830 and the Royal Numismatic Society in 1836.

Smyth’s coin collection was pieced together across the Mediterranean and was remarkable for featuring many of the rarest and most sought after sestertii. Aside from the publication of his own collection, in 1834 he authored his Descriptive catalogue of a cabinet of Roman family coins belonging to his Grace the Duke of Northumbria.