Legio XI Claudiana

437, Lot: 245. Estimate $300. Sold for $650. This amount does not include the buyer’s fee.

PANNONIA. Legio XI Claudiana. Æ Sestertius (36mm, 22.67 g, 6h). Countermark applied during the Civil War, circa August AD 69. (Legio) XI (Claudiana) in square countermark on a bronze sestertius of Nero. Pangerl 82; MacDowall, “Two Roman Countermarks of AD 68,” in NC (1960), pl. VIII, 1, 2, and 4 (read as barred X). Host coin Near VF, c/m VF, brown patina.

From the Richard Baker Collection, purchased from Frank Kovaks, February 1996.

MacDowall describes this type as a barred X, and gives it to Legio X Gemina. Pangerl follows Kos, reading the countermark as XI for Legio XI Claudia. In the late summer of AD 69, that legion was stationed at Poetovium in Pannonia, where a number of these coins have been found.