383, Lot: 497. Estimate $150. Sold for $220. This amount does not include the buyer’s fee.

Claudius. AD 41-54. Æ As (28mm, 11.18 g, 6h). Uncertain mint in Iberia (Mint I). Struck circa AD 41-50. Bare head left / Minerva advancing right, brandishing spear and holding shield. Besombes & Barrandon, “Nouvelles propositions de classement des monnaies de «bronze» de Claude Ier,” in RN 2000, pl. VI, 3; cf. RIC I 100; cf. von Kaenel Type 60 (for official issue). VF, deep green patina, minor scrape on obverse.

With the cessation of western provincial coinage under Gaius and the closure of the Lugdunum in AD 41, the coin supply of western provinces was stretched thin. Apparently, the mint of Rome was unable to keep up with the insatiable demand for coin, particularly in light of the pending conquest of Britain, and several official mints sprung up in Spain and Gaul in response to the shortage. These mints have long neglected by numismatists studying the Julio-Claudian coinage, and Von Kaenel himself erroneously assumes they were all products of the Rome mint. Besombes & Barrandon have broken down these western mints and separated them from both the Rome mint and the numerous imitative issues by their distinctive styles, metal content, and pattern of hoard finds.