Didius Julianus AE Sestertius, what ya think?

Yes to both questions. Not many people realize how interesting and affordable collecting ancient coins can be.

 

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Here is a similar Didius Julianus in similar condition that sold for about $700: https://www.cngcoins.com/Coin.aspx?CoinID=319401

I thought it might be possible the coin was genuine but heavily tooled. So I asked the collector who gifted it to the mechanic who started the thread. He told me that he got the Didius with a group of Roman bronzes from a retired professor and he gave them all away to people he thought would like them. I have no reason to doubt the story and would not discount the Didius without microscopic inspection.

If you do a CNG search by the name of the collector you will see his amazing Herakles collection, many of which sold in Triton XI.

 

It's unfortunate that we don't know why NGC returned the coin without encapsulation. The bottom half of the NGC label has been cut off so we can't see the reason.