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Fletcher’s Knickerbockers. Ambiani. c.225-175 BC. Celtic gold half stater. 15mm. 2.98g.
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Auctioneer has chosen not to publish the price of this lot
Norwich, Norfolk
Description
Fletcher’s Knickerbockers. Ambiani. c.225-175 BC. Gold half stater. 15mm. 2.98g. Celticised Apollo head right, haircurls in ‘hairnet’./ Charioteer crouched above bulbous horse right with ‘knickerbocker’ haunches, rosette below, elliptical chariot wheel behind, pellets in exergue. LT−, DT−, BN−, BM−, Scheers/GB−, Sills GGC−. CCI 11.1014 (this coin), PAS: NLM-3BF2C7 (this coin). New type, apparently unpublished by any of the major continental catalogues. VF, centrally struck on neat round flan of pale lemony-gold, lovely Celtic-style head, bizarre horse boldly displayed. Ex Ron Fletcher collection, found by him at Swinhope, Lincolnshire, 29 March 2011. An unusual well documented gold coin of the highest rarity, no others recorded and seemingly UNIQUE?
Dr John Sills is also an expert on Gaulish gold coins. Almost twenty years ago Spink published his authoritative and highly acclaimed Gaulish and early British gold coinage (2003) which Dr Jeffrey May, an editor of Current Archaeology, called “a masterpiece”. Commenting specifically on this remarkable and incredibly rare half stater Dr Sills says: “This new type is undoubtedly the most important find ever made by the late Ron Fletcher, veteran metal detectorist of Grimsby. It has no close parallels but belongs to a group of light half and quarter staters struck around the Somme Valley and into Belgium in the late 3rd and very early 2nd century BC. They mark the last gasp of a Celtic style in the region before Belgic incomers began striking the larger and heavier Gallo-Belgic A and B. The bust is similar to that on a Biting Wolf quarter, Sills 202, except that the hair curls are enclosed in a distinctive fine web. The clumpy horse with its knickerbocker thighs has few close comparisons, although the rosette is seen on several quarter stater issues. The coin’s typically pale colour suggests that gold was being sucked out of the region of the Somme, possibly as tribute to threatening Germanic tribes. It is one of the earliest Celtic coins found in Lincolnshire and probably sailed to the mouth of the Humber in a small boat of war migrants – a wealthy family of Ambiani maybe, survivors of an early Battle of the Somme, seeking refuge from land-grabbing Germanic invaders? Yes, history does seem to repeat itself, doesn’t it? I doubt that the Bibliothèque Nationale will adopt your name for this notable coin, but it honours a great British metal detectorist” (pers.comm. 9 July 2022).
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Fletcher’s Knickerbockers. Ambiani. c.225-175 BC. Gold half stater. 15mm. 2.98g. Celticised Apollo head right, haircurls in ‘hairnet’./ Charioteer crouched above bulbous horse right with ‘knickerbocker’ haunches, rosette below, elliptical chariot wheel behind, pellets in exergue. LT−, DT−, BN−, BM−, Scheers/GB−, Sills GGC−. CCI 11.1014 (this coin), PAS: NLM-3BF2C7 (this coin). New type, apparently unpublished by any of the major continental catalogues. VF, centrally struck on neat round flan of pale lemony-gold, lovely Celtic-style head, bizarre horse boldly displayed. Ex Ron Fletcher collection, found by him at Swinhope, Lincolnshire, 29 March 2011. An unusual well documented gold coin of the highest rarity, no others recorded and seemingly UNIQUE?
Dr John Sills is also an expert on Gaulish gold coins. Almost twenty years ago Spink published his authoritative and highly acclaimed Gaulish and early British gold coinage (2003) which Dr Jeffrey May, an editor of Current Archaeology, called “a masterpiece”. Commenting specifically on this remarkable and incredibly rare half stater Dr Sills says: “This new type is undoubtedly the most important find ever made by the late Ron Fletcher, veteran metal detectorist of Grimsby. It has no close parallels but belongs to a group of light half and quarter staters struck around the Somme Valley and into Belgium in the late 3rd and very early 2nd century BC. They mark the last gasp of a Celtic style in the region before Belgic incomers began striking the larger and heavier Gallo-Belgic A and B. The bust is similar to that on a Biting Wolf quarter, Sills 202, except that the hair curls are enclosed in a distinctive fine web. The clumpy horse with its knickerbocker thighs has few close comparisons, although the rosette is seen on several quarter stater issues. The coin’s typically pale colour suggests that gold was being sucked out of the region of the Somme, possibly as tribute to threatening Germanic tribes. It is one of the earliest Celtic coins found in Lincolnshire and probably sailed to the mouth of the Humber in a small boat of war migrants – a wealthy family of Ambiani maybe, survivors of an early Battle of the Somme, seeking refuge from land-grabbing Germanic invaders? Yes, history does seem to repeat itself, doesn’t it? I doubt that the Bibliothèque Nationale will adopt your name for this notable coin, but it honours a great British metal detectorist” (pers.comm. 9 July 2022).
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