Sale: CNG 66, Lot: 1300. Estimate $7500.  Closing Date: Wednesday, 19 May 2004.  Sold For $7000. This amount does not include the buyer’s fee.

Anonymous. Circa 264-240 BC. Æ Aes Grave As (280.44 gm). Head of Minerva facing slightly right, wearing triple-crested helmet / Bull standing right; L above. Thurlow-Vecchi 43; Crawford 37/1a; Haeberlin pl. 55, 3-4. As cast, grayish brown patina under earthen encrustation. One of the finest examples known. ($7500)

Ex Triton IV (5 December 2000), lot 389.

According to Thurlow-Vecchi, this is a war issue. This head of Minerva is reminiscent of those of Eukleidas on Syracusan tetradrachms, and the bull may represent Italy. "Such a combination, together with the ROMA inscription, would fittingly symbolize the anti-Carthaginian alliance of Rome, Magna Graecia, Hiero of Syracuse, and the [Mamertini] (a Samnian expeditionary force originally and the specific pretext for the First Punic War)" (Thurlow-Vecchi pg. 25).