The Chris Morrison Collection of Ancient British Coins

Atrebates and Regni, Verica, Unit, cornucopia, beaded sceptre to left, prow of galley to right, com around, rev. horseman right holding spear, verica below, 1.27g/1h (BMC –; VA –; S –). Reverse a little porous, otherwise about very fine, excessively rare; the better of only two known specimens, an intriguing and historically important coin £2,000-3,000

This lot was sold as part of a special collection, The Chris Morrison Collection of Ancient British Coins.

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Provenance: Found near Canterbury (Kent); C. Rudd FPL 76, July 2004 (27A). CCI 04.0501.

Dr Simon Bean, in The Coinage of the Atrebates and Regni, states that the first specimen of this type was found at Richborough (Kent). The provenance of this second coin suggests that perhaps, at the period in question, Verica’s influence was extending eastwards into Kent. There has been much debate in recent years about how Romanized the ancient Britons had become before the Claudian invasion of AD 43. That the coinage had become more Roman in style is beyond debate and the inclusion of Roman symbols like cornucopiæ had become accepted. This, however, is the only Celtic coin to bear an image of a Roman galley, a device which had become popular on Roman coins after the Battle of Actium in 31 BC