East Wiltshire c.50-35 BC Double Wheel Gold Quarter Stater *Excessively Rare*

East Wiltshire c.50-35 BC Double Wheel Gold Quarter Stater

Excessively Rare, 3 known

ABC 2097, 14mm, 1.05g

Obverse

Crude, abstracted head of Apollo right (with inside end of each leaf pointing downwards above the hairbar, and upwards below the hairbar, the upper and lower parts at a marked angle to each other). Hairbar (spike) is decorated with three pellet-in-ring motifs, with ringed pellet above the twin arcs (hooks) at the end. Sometimes a row of short arcs on the vertical end of the cloak.

Reverse

Horse right, triple tail with pellet terminals, fine linear or curved arc mane. Collar around horse’s neck, strap around horse’s belly. Wheels above and below. Ringpole from breast.

Provenance

This coin is from The London Collection of Ancient British Coins. For more information click here: The London Collection – Silbury Coins : Silbury Coins.

C Rudd FPL 122, no 36 (2012). Found Tenbury Wells, Herefordshire

This coin comes with a previous label.

 

‘East Wiltshire’ Tribe

Although Dobunnic coinage holds sway over much of Wiltshire, the central and eastern parts of the county appear to have been home to a different coin-issuing group for at least part of the late 1st century BC. While Derek Allen first noted the possibility of this polity’s existence in 1971, only as a consequence of the important work done by archaeologist Paul Robinson several years later (published in 1977 within BNJ 47) was this confirmed from a numismatic perspective. Previously, these coins had been féted as irregular issues of the Dobunni, a view held by both Allen and the collector R.P. Mack.

Important from a chronological perspective is the fact that no coins of the East Wiltshire group are inscribed, a feature which suggests they probably date to the end of the 1st century BC.