427, Lot: 393. Estimate $500. Sold for $575. This amount does not include the buyer’s fee.

EGYPT, Alexandria. Vespasian. AD 69-79. Æ Drachm (37mm, 28.26 g, 12h). Dated RY 3 (AD 70/71). ΑΥΤΟΚ [ΚΑΙΣ ΣΕΒΑ ΟΥΕΣΠΑΣΙΑΝ]ΟΥ, laureate head right / Draped bust of Nike right; L Γ (date) to right. Köln 288; Dattari (Savio) 389-90; K&G 20.27; RPC II 2427; Emmett 208.3; Staffieri, Alexandria In Nummis 27 (this coin). Good VF, dark brown patina with touches of green, struck on an untrimmed flan. Exceptional condition for the type, and a realistic portrait of Vespasian.

Ex Giovanni Maria Staffieri Collection (Triton XXI, 9 January 2018), lot 30; Classical Numismatic Auctions XVIII (3 December 1991), lot 380.

During the first seven regnal years of his reign in Egypt, Vespasian continued the bronze types first started by Galba. Giovanni Maria Staffieri, in the catalog of his collection, speculates that perhaps a master engraver from Antioch in Syria was brought in to engrave the dies for this issue.