CNG 100, Lot: 242. Estimate $2000. Sold for $9000. This amount does not include the buyer’s fee.

KINGS of BOSPORUS. Cotys I, with Divus Claudius and Nero. AD 45/6-68/9. AV Stater (20mm, 7.84 g, 12h). Dated Bosporan Era 356 (AD 59/60). Laureate head of Divus Claudius right / Laureate and draped bust of Nero right; to left, monogram above pellet; ςΝΤ (date) below. Frolova & Ireland § 14, p. 76 and pl. LII, 14 = Bertier, Monetach 81 = Anokhin 341 (this coin likely cited, in all three, and illustrated, in the first two) ≈ MacDonald 323 (this coin cited and illustrated); RPC I 1921. Near EF, lustrous, a few light marks behind Claudius’ head, some flan cracks and minor edge filing. Rare.

From the collection of Dr. Lawrence A. Adams. Ex V. Adda Collection (Christie’s, 8 October 1985), lot 317, for a hammer of £605. Likely ex Général A.L. Bertier de la Garde Collection.

The referenced plate coin in Frolova & Ireland reproduces the plate in Bertier’s aforementioned article, and unfortunately doesn’t provide enough detail to attribute conclusively this coin to the plated example. The overall positioning of the strike is a match, and many of the more minor details, such as flan cracks and light marks, may not clearly come through given early 20th-century coin plate production. If the present specimen is, in fact, the same as the one plated in Frolova & Ireland and Bertier’s article, it would also be pedigreed from Bertier’s collection, as well as being cited in Anokhin.