Heritage World Coin Auctions
ANA Signature Sale 3066 17 Aug 2018
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Ancients
GERMANIC. Pair of Pre-Migration Period / Late Bronze Age (c. 1000-800 BC?) AV ingots. An intriguing pair of seemingly Germanic-style gold pieces. The large, ingot-like gold "nugget" (measuring approximately 62mm long and 37mm wide, and weighing 196.01g) reveals via specific gravity test a purity of 21 karats and approximately 86.7% gold, rendering an AGW of 5.46 oz. It is clearly manmade (rather than a natural gold nugget), showing characteristic signs of hand manufacture, including small air bubbles, and what are perhaps a sort of hammer marks on one face while the other is completely smooth. While dating such a piece is largely uncertain, the other item in this lot, a gold bracteate, provides further insight. Measuring approximately 40mm in diameter and weighing 1.07g, the concentric circle motif as well as the curled up rims of the leaf recall the famous Golden Hat in the Pergamum Museum in Berlin--an artifact of argued religious and astrological import. Largely manufactured as jewelry and objects of personal adornment, this particular bracteate features tiny holes around the peripheries, indicating that it was almost certainly meant to be sown onto a garment. The concentric circles, like those on the Berlin Golden Hat (which has been roughly dated to between 1000 and 800 BC) are quite different from the designs of later Migration period bracteates, whose common motifs include animals and images of royal figures largely drawn from Roman art. While the present specimen appears too light and wafer thin to be registered by a specific gravity test so as to compare it with the gold alloy of the Golden Hat, i.e., 87.7% gold, this alloy does appear very close to that of the large golden ingot, which may suggest a similar German manufacture and perhaps a similar period of production. Regardless, this remarkable group is sure to find a place of prominence as a study group in the collection of any scholar of classical and Germanic history.
HID02901242017
Estimate: 10000-15000 USD
GERMANIC. Pair of Pre-Migration Period / Late Bronze Age (c. 1000-800 BC?) AV ingots. An intriguing pair of seemingly Germanic-style gold pieces. The large, ingot-like gold "nugget" (measuring approximately 62mm long and 37mm wide, and weighing 196.01g) reveals via specific gravity test a purity of 21 karats and approximately 86.7% gold, rendering an AGW of 5.46 oz. It is clearly manmade (rather than a natural gold nugget), showing characteristic signs of hand manufacture, including small air bubbles, and what are perhaps a sort of hammer marks on one face while the other is completely smooth. While dating such a piece is largely uncertain, the other item in this lot, a gold bracteate, provides further insight. Measuring approximately 40mm in diameter and weighing 1.07g, the concentric circle motif as well as the curled up rims of the leaf recall the famous Golden Hat in the Pergamum Museum in Berlin--an artifact of argued religious and astrological import. Largely manufactured as jewelry and objects of personal adornment, this particular bracteate features tiny holes around the peripheries, indicating that it was almost certainly meant to be sown onto a garment. The concentric circles, like those on the Berlin Golden Hat (which has been roughly dated to between 1000 and 800 BC) are quite different from the designs of later Migration period bracteates, whose common motifs include animals and images of royal figures largely drawn from Roman art. While the present specimen appears too light and wafer thin to be registered by a specific gravity test so as to compare it with the gold alloy of the Golden Hat, i.e., 87.7% gold, this alloy does appear very close to that of the large golden ingot, which may suggest a similar German manufacture and perhaps a similar period of production. Regardless, this remarkable group is sure to find a place of prominence as a study group in the collection of any scholar of classical and Germanic history.
HID02901242017
Estimate: 10000-15000 USD