Sale: CNG 70, Lot: 629. Estimate $300.  Closing Date: Wednesday, 21 September 2005.  Sold For $250. This amount does not include the buyer’s fee.

[Roman Provincial] GAUL, Nemausus. Augustus, with Agrippa. 27 BC - 14 AD. Æ As (13.93 g, 12h). Struck circa 16-10 AD. Back to back heads of Agrippa, left, wearing combined rostral crown and laurel wreath, and Augustus, right, bare; c/m: D D with palm branch between the letters, all within dotted circle / Crocodile chained to palm branch, wreath tied to palm. For coin: RPC I 523; SNG Copenhagen 698 (with c/m); RIC I 155; for c/m: Martini, Locarno 10. VF, dark green patina, slight adjustment marks. ($300)

The letters D D (decreto decurionum=by order of the town council) are found countermarked on numerous civic bronzes of Spain (see lot 627) and Gaul, and probably record the re-validation of circulating coinage as the civic coins were gradually being replaced by standard imperial denominations.