Many were speculating about the final hammer price of the Eid Mar Aureus below, which went up for auction at NAC 132 today. You can read more about the coin itself here. The final hammer price was 2,200,000 CHF, or about $2,300,000 USD(+fees), a very large increase on its previous hammer prices of 120,000 CHF(about $92,000) at NAC 27 in 2004 and 230,000 CHF(about $226,500) at NAC 45 in 2008. Just like the last Eid Mar Aureus that was auctioned at Roma XX, I recorded the live auction for this one, and the video is available below. The first couple of minutes are just the auctioneer making sure all room and phone bidders and staff are ready so skip to 2:38 if you want to go directly to the bidding portion. How did this result line up with your expectations? I posted on another site that I expected it to hammer in the 1.25-2 Million CHF range with a small chance of going way above that, so it wasn't too far outside my estimated max. It also left Roma's record intact for the most expensive ancient coin ever sold with their Eid Mar aureus sold in Roma XX for £2,700,000 or about $3,500,000(+ fees).
Pretty cool, not surprised by the price. Funny enough, I would rather own one of the silver ones then the gold. Was it this one or some other one that was speculated to maybe be a forgery? I could have sworn it was a gold Eid Mar that was being questioned sometime back.
Crawford actually rejected the type and believed this specific coin to be a forgery when he was writing his catalog, but he never actually saw it in-hand and it's not the only type he rejected that has been rehabilitated in the intervening years. Most experts in this area of coinage seem to accept this type now, or at least aren't very vocal if they think it's a forgery and I haven't seen any real arguments on why this coin or the Roma XX example should be considered a forgery. If anything, the pretty thorough investigation completed by Roma on the example they sold strongly suggests that both examples are authentic.
That seems about right, considering the other aureus was in better shape. Whew! Wonder who bought it. Crazy when you start calculating things like that. Wealth on that scale is hard to even comprehend!
It was in this thread posted by @rrdenarius: https://www.cointalk.com/threads/eid-mar-denarius.300892/
Thank you for the video... amazing. Quite funny that if that coin was of a plentiful variety and shown here we would hear "looks soapy", that hole ... uuuggh meanwhile 2.2 million awesomeness!
There are a number of excessively rare ancient coins that are being questioned as to their authenticity. Just recently I read an article questioning the validity of some of the coins associated with the "Porus Dekadrachm". While that particular coin series is considered genuine some of the sub units as well as the "Porus gold medallion" appear questionable. The Brutus Eid Mar Aureus is currently known by three specimens. Before I continue NONE OF THESE ARE MY COINS 1. The one most recently auctioned by NAC. It is known to be part of the Biaggi collection. Leo Biaggi De Blasys (1906-1979) was an important collector of Roman gold coins He purchased this coin from Adolph Cahn in 1952. The coin has been on loan to the British Museum for about 10 years. I saw the coin in September 2018 2. The NFA Aureus This coin was auctioned in NFA Auction XXV November 1990. However it was in the possession of Bruce McNall for a number of years beforehand. Prior to that I have no information. This coin is currently is in the Deutsche Bank in Frankfurt Germany and was on display for a number of years. As far as I can see neither the obverse nor the reverse match the NAC coin (No 1) 3. The Roma Coin. This is the coin sold by Roma just last year. It does share the obverse die with the NFA coin. Both appear to have similar discoloration on the obverse, which may indicate that they are from the same source. It appears to have a pedigree going back to the nineteenth century. At the time I did hear some discussion about the coins authenticity. However I cannot comment on that. Are any of these authentic? I cannot say. I will say that if the NAC coin (No1) is a fake then the forger did a masterful job of distressing the coin. The coin shows a great deal of wear as well as being pierced. (probably as a piece of dowery jewelry). However what did I think the coin should have done at the NAC auction (Coin 1)? At the time I knew it would do better than a million but was uncertain as to how much more. I would have not been surprised had the coin reached 1.3 to 1.6. However 2.2 Million is something of a surprise.
Does anyone know why it achieved so much less, in 2008? Were there at that time serious concerns about its authenticity? Or is 14 years simply enough time, to be a cause for the higher price?
There is also the original British Museum coin (below - ex King George III). This is generally regarded as a fake - note that it's weight (7.36 g) is lower than the other examples (7.84 g for the NAC coin and 8.06for the Roma coin). I have always assumed that this was the coin that Crawford rejected, but I could be wrong.. Ross G.
red. Thanks for posting the news on this exciting event ! Most of us realized this historic coin would sell for an enormous price because the coin is so well documented, regardless of the coin's condition .
This is why Crawford rejects the type, from RRC page 552 appendix 107. This is the coin from which the (plaster) cast labeled 'Forgery, Athens' in the ANS was made: 107. The aureus of Brutus with EID·MAR is in my view false, pace H. A. Cahn, Congrès 1953, 213; the formal reasons advanced by Cabn for accepting the piece are without weight and the piece itself invites suspicion; there is a cast of the example published by Cahn in the ANS, labelled 'Forgery, Athens'; another example is listed in D. Christianus, Catalogus Numismatum Antiquorum (Copenhagen, n.d.) p. 4, no. 10, in the company of seven other Republican gold coins, all false (information from T.V. Buttrey), yet another is rightly in the BM forgery trays.
Thanks for that - it seems Crawford didn't like either the Cahn/Athens coin or the BM coin. But he doesn't seem to give any actual reasons. Ross G.
The holed specimen was bought by Aaron Berk, acting as a broker for an unidentified collector. Aaron mentioned that his father Harlan once owned the holed aureus & sold it for $125,000.00. I'll bet he's crying in his beer right now ....