| Heritage World Coin Auctions > Showcase Auction 61413 | Auction date: 4 November 2024 |
| Lot number: 24152 Price realized: 850 USD (Approx. 784 EUR) Note: Prices do not include buyer's fees. | |
| Lot description: Ancients Constantinople Commemorative (ca. AD 330-340). AE3 or BI nummus (18mm, 11h). NGC Choice AU★. Antioch, 9th officina, AD 330-333 and AD 335, struck under Constantine I to commemorate the moving of the Roman capitol from Rome to Constantinople. VRBS-ROMA, helmeted bust of Constantinopolis left, wearing imperial cloak / She-wolf standing left, looking back, suckling twins Romulus and Remus; two stars above; SMANΘ in exergue. RIC VII 91. From the L. William Libbert Collection. Ex Roma Numismatics, E-Sale 99 (7 July 2022), lot 1216; Roma Numismatics, E-Sale 81 (25 February 2021), lot 1562. https://coins.ha.com/itm/ancients/roman-imperial/ancients-constantinople-commemorative-ca-ad-330-340-ae3-or-bi-nummus-18mm-11h-ngc-choice-auand-9733-/a/61413-24152.s?type=DA-DMC-CoinArchives-WorldCoins-61413-11042024 HID02906262019 © 2024 Heritage Auctions | All Rights Reserved |  |
Match 1:
| Heritage World Coin Auctions > Dallas Signature Sale 3119 | Auction date: 1 November 2024 |
| Lot number: 30045 Price realized: 14,000 USD (Approx. 12,897 EUR) Note: Prices do not include buyer's fees. | |
| Lot description: Ancients Constantine I the Great (AD 307-337). AE3 or BI nummus (18mm, 3.11 gm, 1h). NGC AU★ 5/5 - 4/5. Constantinople, AD 327. CONSTANTI-NVS MAX AVG, laureate head of Constantine I right / SPES-PVBLIC/A, labarum with three medallions on banner, surmounted by Christogram, spearing serpent; CONS below. RIC VII 19. A truly magnificent example of this very rare series. Ex Heritage Auctions, Auction 3071 (7 January 2019), lot 3071; Triton XIV (4 January 2011), lot 835. Few coins boast a level of historical importance and symbolism that compare with this example of Constantine. In the plentiful series of Constantine's bronze coinage, this issue is extremely scarce, only struck for a brief period in late AD 327 and early AD 328. It was the first time that Constantine had struck a coin for circulation with a Christian symbol, the Chi-Rho. Constantine's long journey with Christianity was complicated, and we may never know what his true thoughts or beliefs about the faith were. Christian historians such as Eusebius were quick to attribute some of Constantine's early military victories to divine-will. In his biography of the emperor, Eusebius attributes Constantine's triumph over the staunchly pagan Maxentius at Milvian Bridge to a dream that revealed the Chi-Rho symbol to the emperor, who then placed it on the shields of his troops. There is certainly much to defend the claim that Constantine was a true Christian; his mother was zealously devout, he awarded incredible monetary privileges to the Church, and he often interfered in debates on intricate doctrinal matters, helping to write and approve the Nicene Creed of AD 325. But another school of thought claims that while Constantine looked favorably on Christianity throughout his reign and even may have called himself a Christian, he was still ultimately ambiguous about the faith, perhaps evidenced by the fact that he only received baptism on his deathbed in AD 337. Politics were certainly at play - the empire he finally gained full control of in AD 324 was barely half-Christian, with pagans still occupying the majority of positions of power in both the political sphere and in the army. Constantine knew he had to tread carefully and thus refrained from pursuing any of the anti-pagan measures of his sons or their successors. The complicated political climate better explains the absence of Christian symbolism on Constantine's coinage, and even the Chi-Rho, which later developed an unambiguously Christian connotation, may not have alarmed pagans, at least in Constantine's time. Historian Richard Bruun has argued that in Constantine's lifetime, many pagans saw the Chi-Rho as merely Constantine's personal badge, one he adopted after his victory at Milvian Bridge. Thus, this coin allowed for two interpretations, one for the pagans of the empire and one for the Christians, a duality that is true of many of Constantine's actions. The pagans of the empire would have seen Constantine's standard, identifiable by the Chi-Rho, piercing a snake representing the defeated Licinius I. Christians would have held this coin and seen on the obverse a portrait of their savior, the man who had delivered them from the terrible persecutions of his predecessors. And on the reverse, they saw a prominent symbol of their faith triumphing over evil, a common interpretation of a snake in the Judeo-Christian tradition. https://coins.ha.com/itm/ancients/roman-imperial/ancients-constantine-i-the-great-ad-307-337-ae3-or-bi-nummus-18mm-311-gm-1h-ngc-auand-9733-5-5-4-5/a/3119-30045.s?type=DA-DMC-CoinArchives-WorldCoins-3119-11012024 HID02906262019 © 2024 Heritage Auctions | All Rights Reserved Estimate: 8000-10000 USD |  |
Match 2:
| Heritage World Coin Auctions > Showcase Auction 61413 | Auction date: 4 November 2024 |
| Lot number: 24148 Price realized: 360 USD (Approx. 332 EUR) Note: Prices do not include buyer's fees. | |
| Lot description: Ancients Constantine I the Great (AD 307-337). AE3 or BI nummus (18mm, 3.33 gm, 6h). NGC MS 5/5 - 2/5, Silvering. Cyzicus, 2nd officina, ca. AD 325-326. CONSTAN-TINVS AVG, laureate head of Constantine I right / PROVIDEN-TIAE AVGG, campgate with eight layers, two turrets, star above, no doors; SMKB below. RIC VII 24. Bright strawberry luster. https://coins.ha.com/itm/ancients/roman-imperial/ancients-constantine-i-the-great-ad-307-337-ae3-or-bi-nummus-18mm-333-gm-6h-ngc-ms-5-5-2-5-silvering/a/61413-24148.s?type=DA-DMC-CoinArchives-WorldCoins-61413-11042024 HID02906262019 © 2024 Heritage Auctions | All Rights Reserved |  |
Match 3:
| Classical Numismatic Group > Electronic Auction 576 | Auction date: 4 December 2024 |
| Lot number: 732 Price realized: 130 USD (Approx. 124 EUR) Note: Prices do not include buyer's fees. | |
| Lot description: Commemorative Series. AD 330-354. Æ Follis (14mm, 7h). Special issue for the dedication of the newly expanded city of Constantinople. Constantinople mint, 11th officina. Struck under Constantine I, AD 330. POP ROMANVS, laureate and draped bust of Genius of the Roman People left, cornucopia over shoulder / Milvian Bridge with tower at each end over flowing water of the Tiber River; CONS/ IA above bridge. RIC VIII 21; LRBC 1066; Vagi 3043. In ANACS encapsulation 6097698, graded F 15. From the Delaware Collection. Ex Classical Numismatic Group Electronic Auction 534 (15 March 2023), lot 685. The reverse depicts the famed Milvian Bridge which carried the Via Flaminia over the Tiber, outside Rome, where Maxentius made his stand against Constantine's forces in October of AD 312. Tradition holds that it was prior to this battle that Constantine had a vision that would lead to both his victory over Maxentius and his conversion to Christianity. Estimate: 100 USD |  |
Match 4:
| Heritage World Coin Auctions > NYINC Signature Sale 3121 | Auction date: 13 January 2025 |
| Lot number: 33041 Price realized: 46,000 USD (Approx. 44,878 EUR) Note: Prices do not include buyer's fees. | |
| Lot description: Ancients JUDAEA. Jewish War (AD 66-70). AR shekel (23mm, 13.76 gm, 7h). Choice AU. Jerusalem or Masada, dated Year 5 (April-August AD 70). Shekel of Israel (Paleo-Hebrew), omer cup with pearled rim, the base resting on raised projections; Year 5 above / Jerusalem the Holy (Paleo-Hebrew), staff with three pomegranate buds, globular base. GBC 6, 6399b. GBC 5, 1370a. TJC 215a. Samuels 95 (same dies). Irregular issue. Crisply struck and perfectly centered on bright flan. Areas of golden and smoky toning around the devices. Ex Heritage Auctions, Auction 3024 (19 April 2013), lot 24766; Shoshana Collection of Judaean Coins, Part 2 (Heritage Auctions, Auction 3018, 5 September 2012), lot 20128. The Year 5 shekel ranks as likely the most storied coin in the Judaean series. Silver shekels dated to the fifth year were struck in the months just before Titus and his troops captured Jerusalem and burned the Temple in July AD 70. It is probable that large numbers of these just-struck coins were melted down and the bullion carried back to Rome as part of the booty, which would eventually finance the Colosseum as well as other building projects. There were several Year 5 shekels among the coins excavated at Masada, raising the possibility that the dies formerly employed at the Great Temple may have been smuggled out of the city and that at least some of the coins might have been struck at that remote mountain-top fortress. These coins continued in use until Masada fell to the Roman legions in AD 73 and the last defenders committed ritual suicide, an act of defiance that is still celebrated in Israel today. In the mid-1980s, thirteen Year 5 shekels, all heavily cleaned, were found in the vault of Baldwin's, a legendary London coin dealer. At the beginning of the twentieth century, an unknown person had marked the group as forgeries. However, the dies matched the previously-thought-to-be unique specimen in the British Museum collection (BM Palestine, p. 271, 20), which had been acquired by the BM in 1887. Upon examination of the BM specimen, one observes that its reverse is covered by a thick layer of silver chloride. This type of corrosion is formed during a long period underground. This, plus the circumstances of acquisition of the BM specimen, not only seems to establish its authenticity, but also eliminates the possibility that the additional group of coins from the same dies were manufactured from it. Scanning electron microscopic studies of the entire group further established their authenticity (INJ 9, 1986-7, pl. 9,10). Optical microscopic examination of the coins shows specific manufacturing attributes that would not have been known to forgers of the nineteenth century when they were discovered. Ya'akov Meshorer acquired one of these specimens for the Israel Museum Collection, where it remains today. While some professionals may refuse to definitively call them authentic, similarly no one can categorically condemn them as forgeries. This group of Year 5 shekels remains somewhat controversial today, though they are still traded regularly in the marketplace. From David Hendin's recently released 6th edition of Guide to Biblical Coins, "...some argue that the coins of the Baldwin's group were manufactured from contact dies created using the BM specimen. The British Museum Laboratory studied five Year 5 sheqels using XRF, and concluded 'there is no definitive reason to doubt the authenticity of this group of Year 5 sheqels.'"65 65. British Museum Research Laboratory, RL File No. 5415, 29 August 1986 www.HA.com/TexasAuctioneerLicenseNotice https://coins.ha.com/itm/ancients/judaea/judaea-judaea-jewish-war-ad-66-70-ar-shekel-23mm-1376-gm-7h-choice-au/a/3121-33041.s?type=DA-DMC-CoinArchives-WorldCoins-3121-01132025 HID02906262019 © 2024 Heritage Auctions | All Rights Reserved Estimate: 40000-60000 USD |  |
Match 5:
| Heritage World Coin Auctions > Showcase Auction 61430 | Auction date: 15 October 2024 |
| Lot number: 24072 Price realized: 600 USD (Approx. 550 EUR) Note: Prices do not include buyer's fees. | |
| Lot description: Ancients Constans II Pogonatus (AD 641-668). AV solidus (20mm, 4.50 gm, 6h). NGC AU 5/5 - 3/5, scratch. Constantinople, 3rd officina, ca. AD 649/50-651/2. d N CONStAN-tINЧS P P AV, bust of Constans II facing with long beard and mustache, wearing chlamys and crown surmounted by cross, globus cruciger in right hand / VICTORIA-AVϚЧ Γ, cross potent with base on three steps; CONOB below. Sear 956. Ex Heritage Auctions, Auction 232150 (15 December 2021), lot 63337. Sporting the longest beard of all Byzantine emperors, Constans II ruled at the twilight of the ancient world and the dawn of the medieval. Under his grandfather Heraclius, Latin was discarded as the official language of the empire in favor of the more prevalent Greek, and the Roman provincia became the Byzantine theme. Constans continued to implement these changes, creating several more themes. With his empire under assault from the Arabs in both Asia Minor and Africa, Constans abandoned the struggle and Constantinople itself, moving his capital to Syracuse, Sicily in AD 663. Constans' brief time in Italy was strange and otherworldly. In AD 663, the emperor visited Rome for twelve days. The Pope received him with honor; Constans was the first emperor to visit Rome in two centuries, as the last Western rulers rarely left Ravenna. Conversely, it was also the final time an emperor set foot in the old capital. Professor Paul Freedman of Yale called the visit "eerie... like a ghost emperor visiting a ghost city." By the AD 660s, Rome was all but deserted. Only several centuries earlier the capital of the most powerful state in the world, the city lay in ruins. From its second century apogee of 1.5 million people, by the time of Constans' visit only 50,000-60,000 remained, concentrated in a few isolated neighborhoods of the once-sprawling metropolis. If the mostly poor inhabitants of Rome living in the once-majestic marble ruins thought an imperial visit would increase their fortunes, they were sorely mistaken. Hoping to finance the wars against the Arabs, Constans stripped many of the buildings and statues of Rome of their precious metal, leading to unknown cultural destruction. It was the greatest disaster that had befallen the city since the Gothic War; some estimate that the destruction of artifacts by Constans' looting was greater than in the far more famous Visigoth sack of the city in AD 410. Base metals were not spared the looting - Constans also gutted buildings of their copper and other metals to make weapons. Having decimated the old capital, Constans proceeded to implement the same policies in the rest of Byzantine Italy, destroying countless treasures. His Italian and Sicilian subjects, initially proud that Constans had chosen the West for his capital, grew to hate him. He was assassinated while in his bath in Syracuse in AD 668, allegedly struck on the head with a bucket by his chamberlain. https://coins.ha.com/itm/ancients/byzantine/ancients-constans-ii-pogonatus-ad-641-668-av-solidus-20mm-450-gm-6h-ngc-au-5-5-3-5-scratch/a/61430-24072.s?type=DA-DMC-CoinArchives-WorldCoins-61430-10152024 HID02906262019 © 2024 Heritage Auctions | All Rights Reserved |  |
