CNG 111, Lot: 672. Estimate $3000. Sold for $2500. This amount does not include the buyer’s fee.

Vitellius. AD 69. AR Denarius (19mm, 3.09 g, 6h). Rome mint. Struck circa late April-20 December. Laureate head right / Libertas standing facing, head right, holding pileus and vindicta. RIC I 81; RSC 48. Near EF, attractively toned.

According to A Dictionary of Ancient Roman Coins by John Melville Jones, the vindicta which Libertas carries was “the rod with which a slave was touched during the ceremony of manumission or liberation.”