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Auction: 20004 - British Coins and Commemorative Medals: Spring Auction - conducted behind CLOSED DOORS
Lot: 3

Dobunni, Bodvoc (c. 25-5 BC), gold Stater, 5.40g, 12h, bodvoc across field, rev. triple-tailed horse right, pelleted-annulets and crescent above ['hidden face'], wheel below, saltires in fields (CCI 66.0027 [Ashmolean] same dies; CCI 73.0054 [Fitzwilliam] same dies; Cottam 217-218; VA 1052-1; BMC 3135-3142; S.388; ABC 2039 same obverse die as plate coin), a trace of die rusting on obverse, otherwise an exceptional and supremely pleasing coin, with a virtually complete legend reading seldom encountered with this issue, extremely fine and very rare, one of, if not, the finest of the dozen examples known to commerce, and arguably amongst the best extant

The issues of Bodvoc {trans. 'Battle-crow'}, an historically unattested ruler, are shrouded in mystery particularly as his coin iconography is completely incongruous with other Dobunnic issues, most notably in the unprecedented addition of the ruler's name within the design. Dr John Sills, who reviewed the present coin (CCI 20.0244), has previously suggested that Bodvoc may therefore have been an intruder from a neighbouring tribe such as the Catuvellauni, and probably a relation of contemporary ruler Addedomaros (c. 45-25 BC) or Tasciovanos (c. 25 BC-AD 9), who had long emblazoned names on their own coinage. Intriguingly the so-coined 'hidden face' design seen above the triple-tailed horse on the reverse is also highly reminiscent of Tasciovanian issues of the North Thames area (cf. ABC 2550-74). The Portable Antiquities Scheme currently lists forty-nine records for Bodvocian Staters, with six examples self-recorded since 1998, and the remainder from the archives of the Celtic Coin Index covering the period 1930-1998, with twenty-one coins accounted for within institutional collections (BM [11]; Stroud [1]; Ashmolean [2]; Hunterian [2]; Pitt Rivers [1]; Fitzwilliam [1]; Birmingham [1]; Corinium [1]; Warwick Museum [1]). A similar number are currently untraced or were in private collections at time of recording. At least four of the listed 49 have subsequently resurfaced in public auction or in fixed priced lists, with the present cataloguer only able to trace a total of eleven coins appearing for sale since PAS recording began, this coin being the twelfth (7 unrecorded). The findspot evidence for the issue has been traditionally tight around the north Avon-eastern Severn area, but isolated discoveries have been made throughout the West Midlands, at Knutsford, and even in the case of Sir John Evans' 1861 anecdote, 'in a recently enclosed garden at a place called Birkhill, near the town of Dumfries.'

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Sold for
£7,500

Starting price
£5000