Sale: CNG 66, Lot: 32. Estimate $600.  Closing Date: Wednesday, 19 May 2004.  Sold For $814. This amount does not include the buyer’s fee.

CELTIC, Britain. Catuvellauni. Tasciovanos. Circa 20 BC-10 AD. AV Quarter Stater (1.35 gm). Semi-Spiral Type. Crossed wreath motif with pellet in angles, pellet between crescents / Plump naturalistic horse left with linear mane, bucranium above, T under chin, AS below. Hobbs 1644 var. (no VERO in angles); cf. Van Arsdell 1690; cf. SCBC 224. EF, rose gold, boldly struck, great horse. Extremely rare variety, only three others known. ($600)

Found Bourne End, Hertfordshire.

This extremely rare variety was published by R. Kretz in Spink’s NumCirc February 2001, pp. 8-9 (his Type A variant 2). It seems to belong among the earliest of Tasciovanos’s quarter staters: the ‘unwinding’ of the spiral wreath arms on the obverse marks the transition from the earliest type (Hobbs 1645) to the commoner types (Hobbs 1642-44) with VER or VERL between the arms.