The 1,700-year-old coin features the face of Allectus, a finance minister from Roman England who usurped the Crown by assassinating the ruling emperor Carausius. The coin was forged when he ascended the throne in the year 293 and was then abandoned three years later upon his death.
The coin was identified as an aureus, a Roman coin whose issuance, episodic under the Roman Republic, was regularised from Julius Caesar and Augustus. The aureus is approximately the same size as a denier, but weighs more because of the density of its material: pure gold. This type of currency collapsed with the crisis of the third century, being replaced by the solidus gold.
Known for his attempt to annex England from the Roman Empire, Allectus is now blithely described as the ‘Brexiter’ of the third century.
Estimated between £70,000 and £100,000 euros, the coin found in a Kent field did remarkably well at Dix Noonan Webb – 6.57 times its lower estimate, in fact. The auction frenzy ended with a final bid of £460,000 placed over the phone, totalling a final price of £552,000 with fees.
As Christopher Webb said, the house has set its record sale for a coin, and "as well as being one of the world’s most expensive Roman coins, it is the most money ever paid for a coin of Allectus and it is now the most valuable Roman coin minted in Britain to have been sold at auction. It was a unique opportunity to acquire a stunning coin and the only other one known struck from the same pair of dies is in the British Museum.”
Only 24 Allectus aureus are known in the world. The British Museum, which currently retains one of the most valuable versions of the coin, has helped to authenticate the aureus found by the lucky metal hunter, who preferred to keep his identity a secret. The latter decided to share the gains of the sale with the owner of the land on which the coin was found.
The owner of the aureus said he scanned the field several times, returning empty-handed each time. However the final time only took him 45 minutes to discover the coin. "I cannot believe it, we are ecstatic! We expected it to sell for a little over estimate, but not five times the estimate! We are sharing the money with the farmer, who is also thrilled!".
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Header image via ecns.cn
