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<p>[QUOTE=&quot;AncientJoe, post: 5127677, member: 44357&quot;]I believe that Gonzaga is the earliest &quot;documented&quot; collection which has had its presence retained via its countermarks. The eagle was adopted by the Gonzaga family in 1433 so the coins were countermarked some time after that .Here&#039;s my sestertius from their collection which was sold in 1628:</p><p><br /></p><p>[ATTACH=full]1203130[/ATTACH] </p><p><br /></p><p>I&#039;m unaware of other definitively attributed collections between Gonzaga and Apostolo Zeno but perhaps [USER=90666]@Andrew McCabe[/USER] has more context there.</p><p><br /></p><p><br /></p><p><br /></p><p>I was the underbidder on that coin to &quot;Clio&quot;. Interestingly, CNG has noted some doubts to the attribution of the pedigree in a more recent sale, writing:</p><p><br /></p><p>&quot;Currently known on only three other specimens, the as yet unidentified crowned C countermark has been variously assigned over the years to the collections of King Charles I of England, Christian IV of Denmark, and Queen Christina of Sweden. Such desirable attributions, are however unlikely – Charles&#039;s well documented cipher was a crowned CR, Christian IV used a distinctive crowned C4, and Queen Christina&#039;s extensive collection, first published by Havercamp in 1742 (on whose plates no such countermarks are illustrated) is now housed in the Bibliothèque Nationale, where again, no such examples are recorded. The countermark itself is currently attested to only on imperial sestertii (the other examples being those of Vitellius, Trajan and Gordian I), with each example positioned in the same place, in the field behind the imperial bust. Although tempting to assign the countermark to such extensive and notable collections as those formed by royal households, it is perhaps more likely, especially considering its extreme rarity and instances of occurrence, that the crowned C countermark belongs instead to that of a smaller, far more specialised collector, the identity of whom is yet to be discovered.&quot;[/QUOTE]</p><p><br /></p>

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