Watch List notes:

Marcus Antonius. Aureus, mint moving with M. Antonius 32-31, AV 8.10 g. ANT·AVG Galley r. with sceptre tied with fillet on prow; below, III VIR·R P·C. Rev. Aquila between two standards; in field, LEG – XIX. Babelon Antonia 136. C 56. Bahrfeldt –. Sydenham –. Sear Imperators 377. Calicó 98. RBW –. Crawford 544/7.
Of the highest rarity, apparently only the third specimen known and only the second
still in existence (the one in Paris was melted down in 1831). In unusually fine
condition for a legionary aureus. An issue of tremendous fascination struck
on a very large flan. Good very fine

Ex UBS sale 78, 2008, 1211. Privately purchased from Hubert Hertzfelder before World War II.
Marcus Antonius struck his "legionary" coinage in vast quantities as he and the Egyptian queen Cleopatra VII prepared for war with Octavian. In the end, their efforts proved futile: Antonius and Cleopatra fled the battle at Actium on September 2, 31 B.C. once they realized they would not win the day. Antonius fled back to Alexandria, where he subsequently committed suicide and Cleopatra narrowly escaped being the trophy of Octavian's triumph when she took her own life by the bite of a poisonous asp. Twenty-three legions are named in Antonius' "legionary" coinage, and though he struck untold millions of debased denarii, the same cannot be said of his high-purity aurei. Aurei are recorded for only seven of the numbered legions as well as for the named units of the cohortes speculatorum and the cohorts praetoriae. We might presume aurei were struck as companions to each denarius issue, but that a low survival rare has left us with an incomplete record.

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