27-01-2018 – 01-01-1970
Live Auction 37
Naville Numismatics’ Live Auction 37
Naville Numismatics’ Live Auction 37 features a selection of 907 lots of Greek, Roman, Byzantine coins, all chosen with contribution from NAC’s experts. The auction will close on Sunday 28 January 2018, 16.00 UK time, at which time the live session will begin.
Lot 748: Maurice Tiberius, 582-602. Decanummo. Catania, 582-583 (year 1). From the Spahr Collection. Sold with the collector’s ticket. Starting Bid: 30 GBP.
Naville Numismatics offers for sale the Spahr collection of Sicilian Byzantine coins. Rodolfo Spahr (Catania 3.11.1894-Binningen 15.12.1981), son of Johann Rudolf and Anna Ida Schweizer, was born in Catania where his father had a business in textiles. He spent his infancy there and eventually served in the Swiss army. A love for his birth town spurred him to study the history of Sicily, and in due course he went on to produce two books (Le monete siciliane dagli Aragonesi ai Borboni [1282-1836], 1959 (rist. 1982) and Le monete siciliane dai Bizantini a Carlo I d’Angiò [582-1282] 1976) that, still to this date, remain the fundamental reference works for every collector of Sicilian coins from the Middle Ages to the closure of the mint of Palermo. He also wrote many articles that were published in the Bollettino del Circolo Numismatico Napoletano. Naville Numismatics hopes that collectors interested in this period will relish this opportunity to own specimens formerly belonging to this collection and that they will share the same emotions felt by their previous owner.
The sale begins with a selection of coins, including bronzes and fractions, from Magna Graecia and Sicily, most of them from the E.E. Clain-Stefanelli Collection sold in association with Stacks Bowers Galleries. This section of the sale includes coins from rare mints such as Compulteria, Azetium, Orra, Uxentum, Segesta, Selinus and Tauromenium and also offers an attractive series of coins from Tarentum, Metapontum, Thurium, Velia, Terina, Agrigentum, Syracuse, Athens and Corinth, even beyond a selection of Hellenistic portraits of Seleucid, Parthic and Ptolemaic kings.
Lot 41: Sicily. Leontini. Tetradrachm, circa 430-425 BC. Starting Bid: 1,000 GBP.
Highlights include a wonderful tetradrachm of Leontini, and a rare obol of Cleopatra VII.
Lot 537: C. Cassius Longinus with Lentulus Spinther. Denarius. Mint moving with Brutus and Cassius, 43-42. Starting Bid: 500 GBP.
The Roman selection boasts an interesting series of Roman Republican bronzes and a striking array of denarii, again most of them from the E.E. Clain-Stefanelli Collection. This includes a beautiful quadrigatus, a brilliant denarius of L. Piso Frugi, a beautiful denarius of L. Iulius Bursio, a magnificent denarius of C. Cassius Longinus with Lentulus Spinther (Ex NAC sale 100, 2017, 384) and a rare denarius of Marcus Antonius and C. Caesar Octavianus with M. Barbatius. In this part, there is also an interesting selection of Republican portraits such as Pompeius, Marcus Antonius and Octavian.
Lot 577: Agrippina Senior, mother of Gaius. Sestertius, circa 50-54. Starting Bid 900 GBP.
The Imperial selection of the sale features an attractive series of Augustus as well as an attractive aureus with Caius and Lucius, a wonderful sestertius of Agrippina, a beautiful sestertius of Nero, an interesting sestertius with a vigorous portrait of Hadrian, a rare bronze of Constantine II of the Festival of Isis, even beyond a selection of solidi, denarii, tetradrachms, sestertii, dupondii and asses which included Claudius, Nero, Vespasian, Domitian, Trajan, Hadrian, Antoninus Pius, Faustina I, Lucius Verus, Lucilla, Marcus Aurelius, Commodus, Crispina, Septimius Severus, Elagabalus, Gordian III, Philip I, Philip II, Julian II, Valentinian I and Valens.
Also remarkable are a hybrid aureus of Nero, a rare medallion of Commodus and a selection of antoniniani and bronzes of Postumus.
Lot 348: Egypt. Alexandria. Trajan, 98-117. Drachm, circa 107-108 (year 11). From the Dattari collection. Starting Bid: 180 GBP.
The Roman Provincial part of the sale includes a selection from the Dattari Collection. It is composed of Alexandrine coins from Octavian to Galerius with various types of obols, diobols, hemidrachms, and drachms featuring rare portrayals of ancient divinities.
Highlights include coins of Augustus, Claudius, Domitian, Trajan, Hadrian, Antoninus Pius and Lucius Verus, remarkable specimens both for the state of preservation and rarity.
Giovanni Dattari was born in Livorno on 19th April 1858 and moved to Egypt with his family after the death of his father in 1875.
He is known to have been a keen and competent amateur-merchant of Egyptian antiquities and Greek and Roman coinage. His study in the family villa in Cairo was a common meeting place for archaeologists, Egyptologists and numismatists.
Dattari started his coin collection in 1891 and by 1894 it was comprised of 395 pieces in base silver and 2207 in bronze.
By 1903 the collection had grown to 6835 Alexandrian, 91 archaic Greek, 230 of Alexander the Great, 910 Ptolemaic, 19320 Roman coins and 630 lead and silver pieces and in the following years this number of coins more than doubled.
Naville Numismatics Ltd’s partnership with NAC guarantees highly professional numismatic service and certifies an unlimited warranty of authenticity for the lots it sells.
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Lots can be viewed in Naville’s office in London, by prior appointment only.
During the Live session you can see current lots and bid in real time, making it an easy and fast way to participate in the auction.
Should you have any questions, please call Naville Numismatics at +442033028770 or send an email.
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