Sale: Triton VIII, Lot: 9. Estimate $500.  Closing Date: Monday, 10 January 2005.  Sold For $1150. This amount does not include the buyer’s fee.

CELTIC, Southern Gaul or Northern Italy. Uncertain tribe. Late 3rd-early 2nd century BC. AR Drachm (3.65 gm, 4h). Head of Apollo right with long hair tied with fillet / CALENC, cock standing right; star behind. Sambon pg. 358; McClean 182 (Cales). Good VF, attractively toned. Extremely rare, possibly the third known (the other two in Vienna and the Fitzwilliam Museum). ($500)

Sambon, following Garrucci, believed the piece to be struck by un unknown tribe in the Cisalpine Gaul region. Grose, though, thought the style and full legend of the McClean specimen suggested an attribution to Cales in Campania. While the reverse type is similar to that appearing on Cales bronze of the 3rd century, the obverse and the unusual characteristics of the ethnic clearly suggest this is an imitative issue.