Verica Vine Leaf. Leaping Horse. Sills class 5c, dies 18cl/33. c.AD10-40. Gold stater. 15-17mm. 5.36g. Vine leaf on plain field, VI to left, R[I] to right, incuse O above./ Cavalryman mounted on a right-facing horse with beaded mane, CO F around, beaded border. ABC 1193, VA 520-5, BMC 1168-74, DK 367, S–. CCI 06.0773 (this coin). Good VF/EF, as struck, rose gold, complete vine leaf, magnificent parade-style horseman, crisply cut CO F, immaculate surfaces, pristine condition. Ex John Follows collection. Found near Arundel, West Sussex. VERY RARE die pair, only 18 others recorded.

Verica and other well educated Britons will have been aware that the Latin for ‘manly’ is virilis and that VI are the first two letters of vinum, hence the vine-leaf, symbolic of Verica’s association with Rome and its prestigious wine. Dr John Sills says the Leaping Horse Type “is so named from the unusual attitude of the horse, which is shown leaping from one square embankment to another. It may represent the king straddling the northern and southern halves of his territory” (DK, p.279). For the more scholarly collector who is interested in the technology of Iron Age minting Follows’ virgin-state stater will prove doubly attractive because it was struck from clashed dies (hence the incuse letter O above the vine leaf) – the same pair of dies as BMC 1164 (text), 1161 (plates), formerly in the collections of Sir John Evans (1823-1908) and C.W.Loscombe (Sotheby, 22 Feb 1855). For more on this tantalising topic see Robert Van Arsdell’s Clashed Dies and the Organization of Verica’s Mint, Num.Circ. 102, November 1994, p.402-403. Published in Divided Kingdoms, pp.395 and 405 (this coin). Not in Spink.