277, Lot: 210. Estimate $300. Sold for $360. This amount does not include the buyer’s fee.

Augustus. 27 BC-AD 14. AR Denarius (18mm, 3.42 g, 6h). Uncertain mint. Struck circa 17 BC. Bare head right within oak wreath / Candelabrum ornamented with rams' heads, within wreath entwined with bucrania and paterae. RIC I 540; RSC 2. Fine, scratches and light porosity, obverse strike a bit soft.

While understood to have been struck to commemorate the Ludi Saeculares of 17 BC, the mint for this issue is elusive. Sutherland notes (RIC p. 38): “They have been found in hoards as widely apart as France, Sardinia, and Romania, and, although they seem to suggest eastern portrait treatment, this may well be illusory.”