Sale: CNG 66, Lot: 55. Estimate $1000.  Closing Date: Wednesday, 19 May 2004.  Sold For $900. This amount does not include the buyer’s fee.

CELTIC, Britain. Corieltauvi. Circa 50-40 BC. AV Quarter Stater (1.44 gm). Lindsey Scyphate Type. Stylised boar right with pin-cushion bristles on back, ‘pawmark’ in centre / Reversed S-shape, stylized eyebrow-and-eyes either side, crescents and pellets around. Hobbs 3193; Van Arsdell -; SCBC 395. VF, golden gold, complete. Extremely rare. ($1000)

Found Wickenby, near Market Rasen, Lincolnshire.

Dr. J. Sills writes: “It is now clear that Scyphate gold coins are quarter staters struck in parallel with North East Coast staters. They have a north Lincolnshire distribution, similar to that of the second Corieltauvian mint that issued only British I left-facing staters. The obverse linear pattern is the remains of a left-facing boar that is derived from the animal on Gallo-Belgic D quarter staters, Scheers’ so-called ‘boat type.’ Similarly, the S-shape on the reverse is an elaboration of the waved line on the reverse of the same type. Almost every one of the forty Scyphates in the Celtic Coin Index is from different dies: the design mutated rapidly from die to die. Most of the known coins are chipped or fragmented and it is unusual to see a complete specimen. The best explanation I can think of for the form is that it is an anti-forgery device: it would have made it very difficult to produce plated copies, and I know of no plated examples. This may explain the degree of variety across the series: if the coins were relatively immune to forgery, there would have been less need to make each die a close copy of the last one. The curvature of the dies would also have made the engraving process more difficult.” There are seven Lindsey Scyphates in the British Museum (BM 3187-3193), six of them from the H. Mossop collection; and only two of them are complete. See J. May, "The earliest gold coinages of the Corieltauvi," Celtic Coinage: Britain and Beyond, BAR 1992. For further information on these fascinating cup-shaped quarter staters see Dr. J. May, "Lindsey Scyphates," Chris Rudd list 29, pg. 1-2.