Augustus AR Denarius. Uncertain Eastern mint, 17 BC. Young, male head to right (Gaius Caesar?); CAESAR below; all within oak-wreath / Candelabrum ornamented with rams' heads; AVG-VST across fields; all within wreath entwined with bucrania and paterae. RIC I 540; BMCRE 684; RSC 2. 3.79g, 19mm, 7h.

Extremely Fine.

From the Vogelberg Collection (Switzerland), formed c. 1960-1985.

Often thought to depict a 'rejuvenated' Augustus, in 'Roman Coins and their Values' David Sear reasserts the identification first proposed by Henri Cohen: that this is in fact Gaius. Bearing little resemblance to other portraits of Octavian/Augustus, and struck in the same year that Gaius and his newborn brother Lucius were adopted by Augustus as his heirs, this attribution seems most likely.