Sale: Triton VIII, Lot: 998. Estimate $3000.  Closing Date: Monday, 10 January 2005.  Sold For $2750. This amount does not include the buyer’s fee.

GAIUS (CALIGULA). 37-41 AD. Æ Sestertius (29.43 gm, 6h). Rome mint. Struck 37-38 AD. C CAESAR AVG GERMANICVS PON M TR POT, laureate head left / ADLOCVT COH above and below, Gaius standing left on daïs with camp chair behind, addressing five soldiers standing right, holding parazonia and shields; four legionary aquilae behind. RIC I 32; MIR 3, 6-4; CNR XII, 36/8 (this coin); BMCRE 33; BN 46; Cohen 1. Good VF, green patina with brown traces, spot of minor smoothing in reverse field. ($3000)

From the Michael Weller Collection. Ex Classical Numismatic Review XX (Spring 1995), no. 20-110; Gilbert Steinberg Collection (Numismatica Ars Classica, 16 November 1994), lot 214; Hall Park McCullough Collection (Stack's, 20-22 November 1967), lot 1096.

Highly unusual on this coin is the lack of the letters S C, which designate a coin issued by decree of the Senate (Senatus Consulto). From Republican times, the formula had been used on both silver and bronze coinage, but under the Empire, the emperor took responsibility for the precious metal coinage and left only the base metal coins to be issued by the Senate and accordingly marked it with the S C. In fact, imperial bronze coinage without the formula is generally thought to have been issued under special circumstances and under an authority other than the Senate. The ADLOCVT(io) COH(ortium) sestertii are thought to have been a special distribution issue for the Praetorian Guard personally funded out of the emperor's own purse.