MARC ANTONY SILVER DENARIUS – ARMENIAN VICTORY ISSUE EX PRINCE WALDECK COLLECTION AND PROVENANCED TO THE 1700s – XF NGC GRADED ROMAN IMPERATORIAL COIN (Inv. 20027)

$11,000.00

20027. ROMAN IMPERATORIAL. MARC ANTONY, d. 30 BC.
Silver Denarius, 3.61 g, 20 mm. Issue of Antioch or military mint traveling with Canidius Crassus in Armenia.
Obv. AN[TONIVS AVG]VR COS DES ITER ET TERT, bare head of Antony right. Rev. IMP TERTIO III [VIR R P C], Armenian tiara right, decorated with three stars, bow and arrow behind.
Crawford 539/1; Sydenham 1205.
Ex Leu 17, 5/3/1977, lot 874 = ex Prince Christian August of Waldeck and Pyrmont Collection (1744–1798), Münzhandlung Basel 3 (“Collection de monnaies et médaillons romains: formée en majeure partie par le Prince W. vers la fin du XVIIIe siècle”), 3/4/1935, lot 116.
NGC graded XF, Strike 3/5, Surface 3/5, Prince Waldeck provenance noted on holder.

Christian August, Prince of Waldeck and Pyrmont, was the son of Prince Karl August and his wife, Christiane Henriette of Palatinate–Zweibrücken–Birkenfeld. His parents were both fascinated by the classical past and together formed a collection of coins and antiquities at Castle Waldeck. The interests of his parents were passed on to their son who expanded the family collection with additional objects and coins. Early in the War of the First Coalition (1792–1797), Christian August had commanded Austrian elements of the Austro–Prussian Army against the French Revolutionaries in the Rhineland and after his successes briefly took command of the entire Austrian Army on the Rhine in 1794 before promotion to other important military positions in the Austrian Netherlands and Bohemia. He died in 1797, shortly after accepting an invitation to take command of the Army of Portugal. The painting illustrated above comes from the collection of the Residenzschloss Arolsen and is in the public domain. The Münzhandlung Basel catalogue is courtesy of the Heidelberg University Library, Germany.