Imperial Rather than Senatorial Issue

CNG 108, Lot: 576. Estimate $2000. Sold for $1700. This amount does not include the buyer’s fee.

Nero. AD 54-68. Æ Sestertius (36.5mm, 31.03 g, 6h). Rome mint. Struck circa AD 63-64. Laureate bust right, wearing aegis / Annona standing right, holding cornucopia, facing Ceres seated left, holding grain ears and torch; between them, modius on garlanded altar, ship’s stern in background. Cf. RIC I 139/98 (for obv./rev.); cf. WCN 104/71 (for obv./rev.); Gnecchi III, 10 (pl. 141, 6); CNR XVIII 597. VF, green patina, collection number in field on reverse, minor roughness. Struck on an impressive, oversized flan. Rare without S C on reverse.

Ex Vecchi 4 (5 December 1996), lot 114.

Banti states that “For this period it is thought that the bronze without S C was minted by an imperial mint... The portraits are almost all youthful” (CNR XVII, p. 139).