Sale: Triton VI, Lot: 939. Estimate $10000.  Closing Date: Monday, 13 January 2003.  Sold For $6500. This amount does not include the buyer’s fee.

SEPTIMIUS SEVERUS. 193-211 AD. AV Aureus (7.18 gm). Struck 206 AD. SEVERVS PIVS AVG, laureate head right / PACATOR ORBIS, COS III P P in exergue, Septimius seated left, holding globe in right hand, roll in left, being crowned by Victory who flies above. RIC IV -; BMCRE -; Cohen -. Near EF. Unpublished reverse type and unique. (See color enlargement on plate 14.) ($10,000) 

From the Marc Melcher Collection. Ex Triton IV (5 December 2000), lot 611. 

This unique aureus shares its obverse die with another unique aureus of Septimius that appeared in Tkalec Auction 1 (15 April 1985), lot 252, with the reverse type ROMAE AETERNAE, hexastyle temple. That reverse die was used to strike rare aurei for Caracalla that show Caracalla with draped bust (see Christie's, 9 October 1994, lot 105). The Caracalla obverse die was in turn used to strike aurei with dated reverses of Mars (205 AD) and Liber in quadriga (206 AD). It seems simplest to suppose that this new PACATOR ORBIS COS III P P type belongs to circa mid 206, about contemporaneous with the temple type with which it shares an obverse die, and that the same theme was then continued by the PACATOR ORBIS, bust of Sol type, beginning in 207 or perhaps even late 206.