Rare Restoration Aureus

Sale: Triton X, Lot: 600. Estimate $5000.  Closing Date: Monday, 8 January 2007.  Sold For $7000. This amount does not include the buyer’s fee.

Divus Vespasian. Died AD 79. AV Aureus (6.96 g, 8h). Rome mint. Restoration issue struck under Trajan, AD 107. DIVVS. VESPASIANVS., laureate head of Vespasian right / IMP CAES TRAIAN AVG GER DAC P P REST, winged thunderbolt on draped throne. RIC II 829 (Trajan); Komnick type 67.0, 11 (V3/R3 - this coin); Calicó 707; BMCRE 703 (Trajan); Cohen 650 var. (obverse legend). Near VF, underlying lustre, a tiny contact mark before the ear. Rare.

Ex Sternberg 11 (20 November 1981), lot 609.

In 107 AD, Trajan decided to demonetize the precious metal coinage issued prior to Nero's reform in AD 64. This resulted in a substantial gain for the government as these coins that were melted down were of a heavier and purer metal content than those that would replace them. At the same time, Trajan issued a wonderful series of restoration coins of some of the principal types of Republican denarii and a series of aurei honoring Julius Caesar, Augustus, Tiberius, Claudius, Galba, coins of the Civil War, Vespasian, Titus and Nerva. The aurei are not true restoration coins of earlier types, but instead offer a commentary on the contemporary perspective of the previous emperors significance to Roman history. This coin uses an obverse of Vespasian with a reverse type previously only used by Titus, a pulvinar (cushioned couch) of Jupiter (represented by the thunderbolt), a fitting symbol for Vespasian who had delivered Rome from the horrors of civil war.