Sale: Triton VI, Lot: 935. Estimate $7500.  Closing Date: Monday, 13 January 2003.  Sold For $5000. This amount does not include the buyer’s fee.

SEPTIMIUS SEVERUS. 193-211 AD. AV Aureus (6.92 gm). Struck 204 AD. SEVERVS PIVS AVG, laureate head right / COS III LVDOS SAECVL FEC, Liber standing right, holding jug and thyrsus, facing Hercules standing left, holding club and lion's skin; leopard at feet of Liber to left. RIC IV 257; BMCRE 314; Cohen 108. EF, a few faint scratches in the obverse field. Very rare. (See color enlargement on plate 14.) ($7500) 

From the Marc Melcher Collection. Ex Triton III (1 December 1999), lot 1114; Gilbert Steinberg Collection (Numismatica Ars Classica/Spink Taisei, 16 November 1994), lot 561.

This aureus, and the following two denarii, commemorate the secular games held in Rome in 204 AD.