Unique ID: 68
This isn’t a coin I know much about, and it’s only in the collection because I liked the cartoony rendition of the lion. It’s an imitation of the Massalia drachm featuring Diana on the obverse and a lion on the reverse. Various tribes in the area copied this, but the Insubres did it best by turning the lion into a wolf, although I prefer to think of it as a happy dog. I like to think that the engraver just carved a picture of his pet.
These normally date to the second centrury BC, but the auction house I bought it from have dated it to the first century BC. It’s about 0.5g underweight for the other, 2nd century, examples I’ve found, so I’m assuming that 1) they know what they are doing and 2) the weight and metal content degraded over time like with all other Celtic coins.
This is one of two in the collection (see 67).
