21-01-2017 – 01-01-1970
Live Auction 28
Naville Numismatics’ Live Auction 28
The auction features a selection of 781 lots of Greek, Roman, Byzantine coins, all chosen with contribution from NAC’s experts. The auction will close on Sunday 22 January 2017, 16.00 UK time, at which time the live session will begin.
Lot 55: Sicily, Leontini. Tetradrachm, circa 440-430. About Extremely Fine/Extremely Fine. Starting Bid: 1,500 GBP.
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 Adranum, Naxos, Tauromenium, and also offers an attractive series of coins from Tarentum, Metapontum, Thurium, Caulonia, Croton and Syracuse.
Lot 132: Persia (Achaemenidae). Sardis Daric mid IV century BC. About Extremely Fine. Starting Bid: 700 GBP.
Highlights include a beautiful tetradrachm of Leontini and a wonderful Persian Daric.
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 denarius of C. Mamilius Limetanus, a lovely denarius of T. Carisius, a rare aureus of Julius Caesar and A. Hirtius and an interesting selection of Republican portraits such as Brutus, Julius Caesar and Octavian.
Lot 523: Octavian as Augustus, 27 BC-14 AD. Denarius, circa 17 BC. Good Very Fine/About Extremely Fine. Starting Bid: 400 GBP.
The Imperial selection of the sale features an attractive series of Augustus as well as an attractive aureus with Caius and Lucius, selection of denarii, sestertii, dupondii and asses which included Livia, Gaius, Nero, Vespasian, Domitian, Trajan, Hadrian and Antoninus Pius. It is also remarkable an aureus of Antoninus Pius with Roma depicted on reverse.
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.
Lot 603: Antoninus Pius, 138-161. Aureus, circa 147. Good Very Fine. Starting Bid: 1,400 GBP.
Highlights include coins of Domitian, Trajan, Hadrian, Antoninus Pius and Lucius Verus, remarkable specimens both for the state of preservation and rarity.
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Giovanni Dattari, collector of Alexandrinian coins
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.
His corpus consists of 327 pages (of which four are missing); it begins with a bronze of Augustus and ends with an astonishing quantity of extremely rare issues of Domitianus. Dattari listed all the coins in his collection and reproduced them by pencil tracing over casts.
Giovanni Dattari died in 1923, leaving his wife Eudosia Zifà and his two children, Maria and Marco Aurelio.
Dattari had already donated a substantial number of Alexandrian coins to the Museo Nazionale in Rome in 1920 and after his death the idea of donating his entire collection to the museum was prompted by his daughter Maria who wanted the collection to be made available to the public in a gallery dedicated to her father’s memory.
Naville Numismatics Ltd’s partnership with NAC guarantees highly professional numismatic service and certifies an unlimited warranty of authenticity for the lots it sells.
You may find all offered coins here.
You will find all highlights of the auction gathered on this webpage.
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.