Arras Hoard Survival?
Constantius I. As Caesar, AD 293-305. AV Aureus (17.5mm, 4.91 g, 6h). Treveri (Trier) mint. Struck AD 303-305. CONSTAN TIVS NOB C, laureate head right / HERCVLI CONSER AVGG ET CAESS N N, Hercules standing facing, head left, nude but for lion skin draped over shoulder, resting right hand on grounded club, holding bow in left hand, and wearing quiver; TR. RIC VI 45; Depeyrot 10B/7; Calicó 4836 (same dies as illustration); Biaggi 1850 (same dies); DOC 20 (same dies); Hunterian –; Jameson –; Mazzini dopo 146 (same dies). Attractive deep reddish iridescent toning. Near EF. High relief portrait of fine style.
Ex Brexit Collection; Peus 357 (28 October 1998), lot 884; Lanz 50 (27 November 1989), lot 807.
This coin gives every evidence of coming from the famous Arras-Beaurains Hoard of 1922, which contained between 200 and 300 gold coins, and at least 40 huge medallions, of the Tetrarchy and early Constantinian era. It is not published in the 1977 corpus of the hoard by Pierre Bastien, although 23 other aurei of the exact same type are recorded, many with similar distinctive reddish-iridescent toning. However, the hoard was dispersed immediately after its discovery and reconstructing it, in the words of B.A. Baldwin, “will for ever be impossible in an exact sense.”
