Naville Numismatics’ Live Auction 54

Naville Numismatics Live Auction 54 features a selection of 690 lots of Greek, Roman, Byzantine coins, all chosen with contribution from NAC’s experts. The sale will close on Sunday 15 December 2019, 16.00 UK time, at which time the live session will begin. Absentee bidders can bid electronically through Naville Numismatics website from the day the sale is published online up to the start of the live session.

The sale begins with a selection of coins, including bronzes and fractions, from Magna Graecia, Sicily and Greece, some of them from the E.E. Clain-Stefanelli collection sold in association with Stacks Bowers Galleries.

This section of the sale includes coins offers an attractive series of rare and beautiful coins from Tarentum, Metapontum, Velia, Catana, Naxos, Syracuse, Athens and Corinth, even beyond a selection of Hellenistic portraits of Seleucid, Parthic, Sasanian and Ptolemaic kings.

Highlights include an interesting stater of Alexander III (Ex CNG e-sale 226, 2010, 107), a well struck stater of Lysimachus and a very rare stater of Magnesia ad Meandrum.

The Roman selection boasts an interesting series of Roman Republican bronzes and a striking array of denarii.

This includes a beautiful quadrigatus, an interesting denarius of L. Pomponius Molo, a well centred quinarius of Q. Titius, a beautiful denarius of D. Iunius Brutus Albinus, a rare denarius of I. Caesar and P. Sepullius Macer and a very rare denarius of C. Clodius C.f. Vestalis in very good condition. In this part, there is also an interesting selection of Republican portraits such as Caesar, Marcus Antonius, Cleopatra and Octavian.

The Imperial selection of the sale features an attractive series of Augustus, a very beautiful sestertius of Tiberius (Ex NAC sale 84, 2015, 1751), an aureus of Nero with the Salus, an interesting aureus of Faustina Senior, an extremely rare medallion of Commodus, a well struck denarius of Pescennius Niger, a beautiful solidus of Valens from the Ebert collection (Ex Stack’s sale 174, 2013, 2077) and a rare solidus of Gratian (Ex CNG e-sale 226, 2010, 571) even beyond a selection of solidi, siliquae, denarii, tetradrachms, sestertii, dupondii, asses and folles, some of them from an old Canadian collection and from the M.J. collection, which includes Claudius, Nero, Galba, Vitellius, Vespasian, Domitian, Trajan, Hadrian, Antoninus Pius, Marcus Aurelius, Commodus, Septimius Severus, Caracalla, Geta, Elagabalus, Gordian III, Philip I, Philip II, Trajan Decius, Diocletian, Maximianus I, Constantius I, Galerius, Licinius I, Constantine I and Valentinian I.

They are also remarkable such as a very rare and in extremely good condition follis of Nepotian.

In addition the auction presents an interesting and beautiful selection of Byzantine, Medieval, Modern World coins with important highlights and some interesting books, including the Geschichte des römischen Münzwesens of Theodor Mommsen.

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.

Lots can be viewed in our 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 send an e-mail.

If you have not already done so, please register as a member on Naville’s website.

To browse through the complete auction click here.