EGYPT, Alexandria. Nero. AD 54-68. Æ Drachm (38mm, 39.80 g, 12h). Dated RY 14 (AD 67/8). Near VF.

CNG Feature Auction 132
Lot: 674. Estimated: $ 1 500

The Beniak Collection of Alexandrian Coinage, Bronze, Coin-in-Hand Video

Sold For $ 1 600. This amount does not include the buyer’s fee.

Go to Live

EGYPT, Alexandria. Nero. AD 54-68. Æ Drachm (38mm, 39.80 g, 12h). Dated RY 14 (AD 67/8). Laureate head right; L I∆ (date) below chin / [ΖΕ]VΣ ΚΑ ΠΕΤΩΛΙΟΣ, Zeus Capitolias enthroned left, holding long scepter in right hand and thunderbolt in left; at feet left, eagle standing left, head right. Köln –; Dattari (Savio) 281; K&G 14.118 corr. (obv. legend); RPC I 5318A; Emmett 140.14 (R5); R. Pincock, “Nero’s Large Bronze Coinage For Egypt” in NC 155 (1995), Type II. Dark brown patina, slight roughness, slightly off center, edge marks. Near VF. Extremely rare.

From the Dr. Thomas E. Beniak Collection, purchased from Frank L. Kovacs, 18 November 1997. Ex Malter XLV (28 May 1991), lot 278; George Bauer Collection.

This coin is one of the great rarities of the Alexandrian series. Nero issued a prodigious amount of billon tetradrachms at the Alexandria mint. It has been speculated that this was part of his fund-raising campaign to rebuild Rome after the devastating fire of AD 64 (he melted down the higher silver content tetradrachms already in circulation, and replaced them with the lower silver content billon tetradrachms). As a result, bronze coinage in general was neglected during Nero’s reign in Alexandria, especially the larger denominations – hemidrachm and drachm.

The final winners of all CNG Feature Auction 132 lots will be determined at the live online sale that will be held on 18-19 May 2026.

CNG Feature Auction 132 – Session Three – Lot 588-888 will be held Tuesday morning, 19 May 2026 beginning at 9:00 AM ET.

Winning bids are subject to a 22.5% buyer's fee for bids placed on this website and 25% for all others.

We recognize that our users may have various Internet Browsers and Operating Systems. We like our visitors to have the best possible experience when using our bidding platform. However, we do recognize that it is impossible to develop applications that work identically, efficiently and effectively on all web browsers. The CNG bidding platform supports the latest stable major version and stable previous version of Chrome and Firefox.