154, Lot: 185. Estimate $150. Sold for $160. This amount does not include the buyer’s fee.

Antoninus Pius. AD 138-161. Æ As (24mm, 11.21 g). Struck AD 154-155. Laureate head right / Britannia seated left on rock, resting head upon hand; shield and vexillum (?) in background before her. RIC III 934; BMCRE 1971; Cohen 117. Near VF, dark green, almost black, patina, light roughness, typical short flan.

There is some debate as to whether or not the BRITANNIA asses of Antoninus Pius were struck in the Roman province of Britannia itself. The latest scholarship (cp. D.R. Walker, The Temple of Sulis Minerva at Bath: Volume 2, the Finds from the Sacred Spring, pp. 295-296) repeatedly alludes to the coins as "British associated," and is careful to draw the line between declaring either a British or a Roman manufacture. In regards to the BRITANNIA dupondii, Walker does state that they were produced in Rome for shipment to Britain, and it is unlikely that the asses would have been manufactured at a mint other than the same as that striking the dupondii. Nevertheless, the peculiar fabric of this issue, so different than that which is normally encountered and is of unquestionable provenance, as well as the fact that not a single specimen has been excavated outside of Britain would seem to indicate that provincial manufacture is not unlikely.