Ex Niggeler, Weber, and Lake Price Collections – Pedigreed to 1880

Triton XX, Lot: 657. Estimate $5000. Sold for $8000. This amount does not include the buyer’s fee.

Gaius (Caligula), with Divus Augustus. AD 37-41. AR Denarius (19mm, 3.81 g, 11h). Lugdunum (Lyon) mint. 1st emission, AD 37. C • CAESAR • AVG • GERM • P • M • TR • POT • COS, bare head of Gaius (Caligula) right / Radiate head of Divus Augustus right, flanked by two stars. RIC I 2; Lyon 157; RSC 11; BMCRE 4-5; BN 3-8. Near EF, toned, banker’s mark on the reverse. Rare.

From the Dr. Patrick H. C. Tan Collection. Ex Gemini XII (11 January 2015), lot 339; Spink & Galerie de Monnaies Geneva (15 February 1977), lot 269; Walter Niggeler Collection (Part 3, Bank Leu/Münzen und Medaillen, 2 November 1967), lot 1090; Sir Hermann D. Weber Collection (Sotheby, Wilkinson and Hodge, 29 June 1893), lot 62 (part of); William Lake Price Collection (Sotheby, Wilkinson and Hodge, 27 May 1880), lot 310 (part of).

Sir Hermann Weber is best known within numismatics for his extensive Greek collection that was cataloged by L. Forrer and published by Spink in the 1920s. Originally, his collection also comprised Roman, Anglo-Saxon, and English coins, but these all were sold off by Sotheby, Wilkinson and Hodge in 1885 and 1893, ostensibly so that he could concentrate on the Greek series. The sale catalog of his Roman coins, in 1893, is particularly notable, since it was the first ancient coin auction catalog in Britain to feature photographic plates.