Sale: Triton VI, Lot: 601. Estimate $3000.  Closing Date: Monday, 13 January 2003.  Sold For $4500. This amount does not include the buyer’s fee.

EGYPT, Alexandria. Septimius Severus and Julia Domna. 193-211 AD. Billon Tetradrachm (13.43 gm). Dated year 8 (199/200 AD). AVT K L CEP CEVH EVCE PERT CEB AP AÆ [PAR MG](ligate), laureate head of Severus right / IOYLIA• ÐOMNA• CEB MHT CTPAT, draped bust of Domna right; L H before. Köln -; Dattari -; Milne -; Emmett -; Schweizer Münzblätter 108 (1976), pg. 32 (this coin). Toned, good VF. Possibly unique. ($3000) 

From the Marc Melcher Collection. Ex Philip DeVicci Collection; Triton IV (5 December 2000), lot 372; Triton I (2-3 December 1997), lot 737; Numismatic Fine Arts Fall Mail Bid Sale (18 October 1990), lot 2429; Adolph Hess 251 (7-8 May 1981), lot 172; G. Dattari Collection (but not published in his catalogue).



The Alexandrian coinage of Septimius Severus and his family is generally quite rare and always highly coveted by collectors of the series. This rarity has been demonstrated by the unusually high number of both obverse and reverse die links that have been recorded over the span of Severus' coinage, including reverse links with other coins of his family. The rarity of Severus' Alexandrian coinage is generally attributed to his parsimonious economic policies, and the fact that there was a surplus of circulating coinage in Egypt due to the recoining efforts of Commodus. AD or AÆ?