HERITAGE OFFERS EID MAR DENARIUS

 

One of the elite coins from the prestigious Hunt Collection, a coin considered the most historically important of all ancient coins, will find a new home when it is sold in Heritage Auctions' CSNS World Coins Platinum and Signature® Auction May 3-5. The Marcus Junius Brutus, Assassin of Caesar and Imperator (44-42 BC), with L. Plaetorius Cestianus, as Magistrate. AR denarius (19mm, 3.72 gm, 12h). NGC XF 5/5 - 4/5, Fine Style (estimate: $450,000+) is the only certified example ever to come to auction that has received a Fine Style designation from NGC.

"The significance of this coin is impossible to overstate," says Cris Bierrenbach, Executive Vice President of International Numismatics at Heritage Auctions. "It is the only Roman coin to mention a specific date and the only Roman coin to openly celebrate an act of murder.

"In addition, this magnificent coin has been a part of some of the most significant coin collections of the last century, including those of Peter Weller, Nelson Bunker Hunt and Sy Weintraub, which plays a significant part in the surging interest and demand."

In addition to the absence of a date and the reference to murder, it also is one of the very few specific coins to be mentioned by a classical author. In his account of the Roman civil wars of 49-31 BC, the Roman historian Dio Cassius wrote, "Brutus stamped upon the coins which were being minted his own likeness and a cap and two daggers, indicating by this and by the inscription that he and Cassius had liberated the fatherland." The EID MAR type was selected in a 2008 vote by top numismatists as No. 1 of the "100 Greatest Ancient Coins."

To read the complete lot description, see:
Hunt Specimen and Cahn Plate Coin Eid Mar Denarius (https://coins.ha.com/itm/ancients/roman-republic/ancients-marcus-junius-brutus-assassin-of-caesar-and-imperator-44-42-bc-with-l-plaetorius-cestianus-as-magistra/a/3107-30051.s)

To read the earlier E-Sylum article, see:
IDES OF MARCH COIN RETURNED TO GREECE (https://www.coinbooks.org/v26/esylum_v26n13a27.html)

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