385, Lot: 437. Estimate $100. Sold for $120. This amount does not include the buyer’s fee.

M. Fannius C.f. 123 BC. AR Denarius (18mm, 3.93 g, 5h). Rome mint. Helmeted head of Roma right; ROMA behind, X (mark of value) below chin / Victory driving galloping quadriga right, holding reins and wreath; M•F(AN) C•F in exergue. Crawford 275/1; Sydenham 419; Fannia 1; Type as RBW 1097. VF, deep cabinet toning, a few light scratches.

From the Andrew McCabe Collection, purchased from Emil Szaur in Dublin, 1984.

Emil Szaur was a well-known and respected coin dealer in Dublin in the late 20th century. Of Hungarian extraction, his father was an aeroplane pilot in the Austro-Hungarian Navy in the first world war. For many decades, Szaur ran the only high-end coin shop in Ireland, and when I started collecting ancient coins in the 1970s he provided me with a great deal of mentorship. In particular, he urged me to specialize, to aim for quality, and to buy the book before the coin. Indeed, I purchased my copy of Crawford’s RRC from his shop. His coin shop was a wonder of beautiful displays – not a place to look at runs of shiny antoniniani but rather a Republican aes grave placed next to Thai silver boat money next to a Morgan dollar. I last met Emil at Coinex in 1998, where numismatic friends had clubbed together to host a table for him; he died the following year. The Numismatic Society of Ireland has an Emil Szauer Memorial Lecture each February in Dublin. Emil unintentionally taught me another lesson in numismatics that I will never forget – that sometimes you have to go with your inner sense of what is an important coin, rather than maintaining too high a regard for quality, or for the advice of others. He did this by advising me that my EID MAR denarius was really not in good enough condition for the nature of the collection I was forming and that I should seek a better example. I sold that EID MAR in 1999 (Vecchi Sale 17, lot 800), and am still seeking that better example. It has proved an oddly elusive quest. I think, however, that I can let go of this Fannia denarius, given I still have one or two other Szaur coins in my cabinet. [A. McCabe]