Britannicus AE Smyrna AD 50

Obverse: ZMY, bareheaded, youthful bust of Britannicus right

Reverse: ΕΠΙ ΦΙΛΙΣΤΟΥ ΕΙΚΑΔΙΟΣ, Nike/Victory advancing right, trophy over shoulder

No Fieldmarks/Officina

No Mintmark

RPC I 2476

16.9mm, 3.84g

**VERY RARELY SEEN JULIO-CLAUDIAN PRINCEPS**

Britannicus was the son of the Emperor Claudius, born on February 12^th, AD 41, he was originally named Tiberius Claudius Germanicus, but his name was changed in commemoration of the Conquest of Britian, when the young Princeps was less than three years old; as the natural son of the Augustus, he was of course the ‘heir apparent’ to Claudius until, however, until the disgrace and execution of his mother Valeria Messalina in AD 48, whereupon Claudius married Agrippina the Younger, who would have Nero become the new ‘heir apparent’; Britannicus would die one day shy of his 14^th birthday, being poisoned on Nero’s orders on February 11^th, AD 55;

This specimen is from the city of Smyrna in Ionia and, as of the time of this listing, seemingly quite common, with RPC alone listing more than 90 examples; however, as is often the case, more than 70 of these specimens are in the collections of private institutions, i.e. universities and museums, thus if you are to look at RPC I 2476, you will just 17 coins shown; RPC shows that specimen 5 through 82 (!!) are in the possession of Dr. Dietrich O. A. Klose, a German numismatist whom authored several reference book on ancient and modern numismatics; indeed he is the main source for the study and research of these types, which can be found in Klose XXXI: Britannicus ( it should be noted that RPC disagrees with Klose and lists this type as Nero, however they still list it under Britannicus as well; it seems both are accepted as interchangeable, however this does not look like a youthful Nero, as his features are quite distinctive, even as a child/young adult)

Auction archives/ACSearch shows an extraordinary number of specimens, more than 250 individual listings to be exact; however, much the like total we see listed by RPC, more than half of these 250 listings are of the same example, listed and relisted over and over; thankfully, most auction houses use the same photo when they relist a coin that did not sell, so with many of these listings we can be sure that we are looking at one coin, listed several times; that said, when a collector wins a coin and decides to consign it to an auction house, said house will, of course, take new photos; so we have to hope that the auction house cites where said coin came from, such as 'ex so and so, auction---, lot---' but they do not always do so

A rough estimate on the total number of known specimens is nearly impossible to gauge, however I do not think that there have been 250+ examples sold at auction, for we would expect to see this type quite often and that is simply NOT the case; from what I can see on the many auction listings, the vast majority cite this specimen as either 'rare' or 'very rare', including prestigious and well known auction houses such as CNG and Heritage, who are known, for the most part, for being upfront and not rating every coin as 'rare', as some are wont to do

For a good gauge of the actual rarity of this type, we need to look at recent prices realized lists from auctions, with the most recent sale recorded being: Ancient Rarity Coins, E-Auction 8, Lot 548, 9/05/2026, which sold for over $125, not including the buyers premium, shipping, insurance, VAT, taxes etc.; the next most recent was sold by: Concordia Numismatic, Daphne Auction 46, Lot 1265, 8/27/2026, which sold for almost $100, not including the extra fees listed above; the final sale I will mention is absolutely SHOCKING, for lack of a better term:  Status International, Auction 406, Lot 10079, 6/09/2026 which sold for an extraordinary $511, I am entirely lost for words as to why this particular specimen sold for such a high amount, however this auction house seems to be based in Australia, so I do not know if that has anything to do with the final sale price or not..

Thus it seems that this type stills draws attention from bidders, whether said bidders know what they are bidding on or whether they are seeing the name Britannicus and going into a bidding war is anyone's guess; my main point being: common coins do NOT sell for almost or over $100 (or for $500 for that matter), thus this type is either very scarce to rare or bidders are getting into bidding wars over the name Britannicus

A final note: the specimen that sold for over $500 shows a CNG provenance that is equally mindblowing: CNG, Electronic Auction 490, Lot 82, 4/21/2021, which sold for $1400; however this specimen was from the Peter J. Merani Collection, so it is possible that both the coin AND the provenance were main attractions to bidders; it seems this specimen has quite the price range, from roughly $100 to over $1000; I will price this modestly as at this point I have no real idea what an actual, fair price would be, as this isn't the highest quality example but it is not the lowest either, with a fine portrait but worn reverse