Augustus Coins: A Historical Reference

About 3.8 grams. That’s what a well-struck Augustus denarius from Lugdunum weighs in your hand. The silver is nearly pure—97% or better, confirmed through metallurgical testing of surviving specimens.¹⁰ Hold one next to a debased antoninianus from the 260s and the difference registers before you reach for the scale. That consistency was deliberate. Augustus built a monetary system designed to outlast him. It did—the framework he established around 23 BC survived, with modifications, for three centuries.

Silver denarii make up the bulk of what collectors encounter. A common type—the Gaius and Lucius issue from Lugdunum, struck in enormous quantities near the end of the reign—runs $300–600 in VF depending on centering and surface. Gold aurei start around $5,000. The base metal coinage—large brass sestertii, copper asses produced at Rome under the annual moneyers—carries more historical information per dollar than almost anything in the Roman series. Collectors who skip it are leaving the best part behind.

This guide reads the Augustan coinage as history, not as a catalog. Coins appear throughout as evidence within the narrative. For individual type lookups, the full catalog of 794 Augustus types is in the NumisLens database, 350 of them with images. What follows here is the context that makes those entries mean something.

The Last Republican

On the Ides of March 44 BC, Gaius Octavius was an eighteen-year-old student at Apollonia in Illyria. News of Caesar’s assassination took roughly two weeks to reach him. He sailed back to Italy, landed near Brundisium, and only then learned from the contents of the will that Caesar had adopted him and left him three-quarters of his estate.⁵ The coins of the next thirteen years track his transformation from private citizen to sole ruler of the Mediterranean world, and they do it with a specificity that the literary sources often lack.

The earliest coins bearing Octavian’s name are triumviral issues from the period after the Second Triumvirate was formalized in late 43 BC. Crawford catalogues the Republican series;⁸ RIC I² picks up where he leaves off.¹ These early pieces show a young man’s portrait alongside legends that lean heavily on his adoptive father: CAESAR DIVI F—“son of the divine”—appears early and never goes away. It becomes his most persistent claim to legitimacy, the one that underwrites everything else.

The coinage of the triumviral period is chaotic. Three men—Octavian, Antony, Lepidus—each issued coins from overlapping mints with overlapping authority. Antony’s legionary denarii, struck to pay his troops before Actium, are among the most common Roman silver coins on the market today and still sell for $150–400. Octavian’s issues from the same years are scarcer and less standardized. The portraits are realistic in a way that would later disappear: a thin face, prominent ears, none of the classical idealization that comes after 27 BC.

Pick up a denarius from 32 BC and one from 25 BC. The first shows a gaunt portrait with individual features—you can almost count the strands of hair. The second shows a mask. Same person. Different political reality.

Actium changes everything. After 31 BC—and especially after the annexation of Egypt in 30 BC—the coinage begins to consolidate. Types commemorating the conquest appear immediately: crocodile reverses on denarii from an eastern mint (the exact workshop is still debated), Egyptian imagery on coins from multiple mints.¹ The message is blunt. We took Egypt. Octavian’s war treasury was suddenly enormous—the wealth of the Ptolemaic kingdom—and the Roman monetary system would feel its effects for decades.

As — Lugdunum

Head of Augustus, laureate, right

RIC I (second edition) Augustus 230 · 10 BC-6 BC

Augustus himself described the settlement in the Res Gestae, the autobiographical inscription set up after his death: “In my sixth and seventh consulships, after I had extinguished civil wars, and at a time when with universal consent I was in complete control of affairs, I transferred the republic from my power to the dominion of the senate and people of Rome.”⁴ The coins tell a slightly different story. The name AVGVSTVS—granted by the Senate in January 27 BC—was religious in connotation, suggesting something more than human authority. It went on the coins immediately and stayed there. Whatever the constitutional theory, the coinage made clear who held power.

The Augustan Monetary Reform

Sutherland dated the great monetary reform to around 23 BC in RIC I².¹ Other scholars have proposed dates ranging from 27 BC to as late as 19 BC. The exact year matters less than what the reform accomplished: a restructuring of Roman coinage into a system of interlocking denominations in gold, silver, and base metal that actually worked. The Republic’s chaotic mix of silver denarii and bronze had never been rationalized this cleanly.

The structure was elegant.

At the top, the gold aureus: approximately 7.8 grams of high-purity gold, traditionally reckoned at 42 to the Roman pound (though the actual weights of surviving coins suggest the standard may have been closer to 40 early in the reign, tightening to 42 later). One aureus equaled 25 silver denarii. The denarius—about 3.8 grams, 97–98% fine silver—was the workhorse: the denomination that paid soldiers, settled debts, and crossed borders.¹⁰ A gold quinarius (half aureus) and silver quinarius (half denarius) existed but were struck intermittently.

Below the denarius sat the base metal coinage. The sestertius, in orichalcum—a golden-yellow brass alloy of copper and zinc—was worth four asses. The dupondius, also orichalcum, worth two asses. The copper as. Then the smaller semis and quadrans. The choice of orichalcum for the two larger base denominations was deliberate: the bright yellow metal visually distinguished them from the red copper as, even when worn. You can still see this difference on coins two thousand years later.

These base metal coins bore the letters SC—Senatus Consulto, “by decree of the Senate”—on their reverses. What this actually meant is one of the older arguments in Roman numismatics. The traditional view held that the Senate controlled base metal coinage while the emperor kept gold and silver. Few scholars still defend this position unmodified. Sutherland argued that SC marked the Senate’s authorisation of base metal bullion withdrawals.¹ Wallace-Hadrill’s influential 1986 reinterpretation linked SC to the Senate’s role in approving coin types and designs.³ The debate remains open, but most current work treats SC as reflecting some form of senatorial involvement while acknowledging that real authority over all coinage rested with the emperor. The practical reality: Augustus let the Senate’s name appear on the copper and brass to maintain the appearance of shared governance. The gold and silver carried his name and portrait alone.

Weight standards and what they tell you

Weight standards shifted during the reign and can help narrow a date even on worn coins. Early aurei from the immediate post-Actium period tend toward 8.0 grams; the standard settled at approximately 7.7–7.8 grams by mid-reign. Denarii are more consistent at 3.7–3.9 grams, but late issues sometimes drop slightly. Systematic weight data from die studies and hoard analyses has confirmed these ranges.¹⁰

The orichalcum coinage tells its own story. Early sestertii are massive—up to 27 grams on broad, well-spread flans. Later issues shrink. The large-module sestertii, when they survive in good condition, are among the most visually impressive Roman coins produced under any emperor. A well-preserved example with sharp legends and original brass colour can run $2,000–5,000 at auction, competing with precious metal for collector attention.

Two denominations don’t fit the neat grid. The silver quinarius was struck sporadically and never in quantity. The cistophorus—a large silver coin of approximately 12 grams on its own reduced cistophoric standard—lighter than the Attic tetradrachm at roughly three Attic drachmas rather than four—continued to circulate in Asia Minor alongside the denarius. Worth roughly three denarii, it functioned as a regional denomination and shows that Augustus was willing to accommodate local monetary traditions rather than forcing uniformity overnight.⁹

The fixed exchange rates—1 aureus to 25 denarii, 1 denarius to 4 sestertii, 1 sestertius to 4 asses—held because the intrinsic metal values roughly matched the face values. When those ratios eventually drifted under later emperors, the system broke. Under Augustus, it held. The purity of the silver, the weight of the gold, the visual distinction between orichalcum and copper—all of it was calibrated to be self-reinforcing.

Denomination	Types in catalog
Denarius	376
Aureus	172
As	70
Dupondius	40
Sestertius	35
Quadrans	35
Cistophorus	22
Quinarius Aureus	14
Tetradrachm	12
Quinarius	8
Semis	5
4-Aureus	2
AE Half Unit	2
AE Unit	1

Where the Coins Were Made

Augustan mints operated on a logic that collectors learn to recognize. Precious metal production—gold and silver—was tightly controlled and concentrated at a small number of workshops. Base metal—sestertii, dupondii, asses, and fractions—came primarily from Rome. Understanding which mint struck which denomination, and when, is the foundation of Augustan attribution.

Rome struck base metal coinage under the authority of the tresviri monetales, the annually appointed board of three moneyers whose names appear on the coins. Names like L. SVRDINVS, C. ASINIVS GALLVS, or P. LVRIVS AGRIPPA are not the emperor’s name—new collectors sometimes confuse them. The moneyers’ identities help date the coins precisely, since their terms of office can be established from independent evidence.¹

Lugdunum—modern Lyon—was the primary mint for gold and silver from about 15 BC through the end of the reign and beyond into Tiberius’s rule. Before Lugdunum came fully online, precious metal production shifted between several workshops, which brings us to the Spanish problem.

Three mints in Iberia struck Augustan coinage: Emerita (Mérida), Colonia Patricia (Córdoba), and Caesaraugusta (Zaragoza). They were most active during and after the Cantabrian Wars of 26–19 BC—Augustus was personally present for the early campaigns (26–25 BC) before illness forced his departure, and the mints continued operating as his generals finished the wars. Attribution among these three is contested. Coins assigned to ‘Colonia Patricia’ in RIC I² have been questioned or reassigned by later scholars, and the debate is far from settled.¹ For collectors, the practical consequence is simple: when a dealer labels a coin “Colonia Patricia,” check whether that attribution has been revised. The older the reference books, the more likely the mint assignment is outdated.

Quinarius — Uncertain Value

Head of Octavian, bare, right

RIC I (second edition) Augustus 276 · 29 BC-26 BC

The eastern mints are similarly complicated. Ephesus and Pergamum both struck Augustan coinage in the late 30s and 20s BC, and distinguishing between them requires attention to die style and control marks that even specialists argue about. Antioch in Syria struck both silver and bronze, often to the Seleucid tetradrachm weight standard. These eastern issues tend to be scarcer on the western market and are sometimes dismissed as ‘provincial’—but they bear Augustus’s portrait and titles and circulated as imperial money.⁹

Nemausus (Nîmes, in southern Gaul) deserves its own mention. The famous asses showing the back-to-back heads of Augustus and Agrippa, with a crocodile chained to a palm on the reverse, were struck here in enormous quantities across three main series from roughly 20 BC to 14 AD. The series are distinguished by Augustus’s headgear—bare, oak-wreathed, or laureate.¹ They’re handsome coins, available for $100–300 in respectable condition, and they tell you more about Augustus’s relationship with his most important lieutenant than any passage in Cassius Dio.

As — Nemausus

Heads of Agrippa (left) and Augustus (right) back to back, Agrippa wearing combined rostral crown and laurel wreath and Augustus is bare-headed

RIC I (second edition) Augustus 155 · 20 BC-10 BC

Mint	Types in catalog
Rome	196
Colonia Patricia	183
Lugdunum	159
Caesaraugusta	82
Uncertain Value	68
Pergamum	40
Emerita	25
Antiocheia Syria	12
Ephesus	11
Nemausus	8
Cyrene	5
Antiocheia Pisidia	3
Treveri	1
Samos	1

Nearly 68 types in the current catalog are attributed to uncertain or disputed mints. This reflects genuine ambiguity in the evidence, not a failure of scholarship. When a coin lacks a definitive mint indicator and its style could fit more than one workshop, honest catalogers say so. A coin marked ‘uncertain mint’ in RIC I² is a data point, not a deficit.

The Face of Power

No Roman emperor controlled his visual image as deliberately as Augustus. Zanker’s study of Augustan imagery demonstrated how a unified portrait type was disseminated from a central model to workshops across the empire.² The coins are where most people encountered that image—millions of them, pressed into the hands of soldiers, merchants, tax collectors—and what they show is a political project as much as a human face.

The early portraits, on triumviral and immediately post-Actium issues, are recognizably different from what comes later. A young man with specific, individualised features: a somewhat narrow face, a straight nose, a firm chin. No idealisation. Republican coin portraiture valued verism—showing the subject as they were, not as they wished to appear—and Octavian’s early die engravers worked in that tradition. The same approach is visible on contemporary portraits of Antony and Lepidus.

Around 27 BC, everything shifts. The portrait that emerges—and persists, with minor variation, for the remaining forty years of the reign—is a classical ideal. Features smooth out. Proportions regularize. The hair falls into a distinctive arrangement: a forked parting over the centre of the forehead, with comma-shaped locks falling to either side, directly echoing the hairstyles of Greek heroes and gods. Boschung catalogued the sculptural portrait types and established a rough chronology.⁷ On coins, the progression is harder to pin down because die engravers at different mints interpreted the central model differently.

Three phases are visible if you handle enough examples. Early: bare head, realistic features, no divine pretension. Middle: laureate, idealised, youthful—the mature Augustan style that most collectors encounter. Late: still idealised, sometimes with slightly heavier features, almost always laureate. The wreath is both a religious symbol—Apollo’s attribute—and a triumphal one.

What never changes is the apparent age. Augustus died at 75. His last coins show a man of perhaps 30. This is sometimes called ‘eternal youth,’ but it’s more precise to call it a rejection of biographical time in favour of ideological time. The authority does not age. Compare Vespasian, who looked every year of his age on his coins and apparently preferred it that way.²

For collectors, portrait style is a dating tool and a pricing factor. The early realistic portraits—bare-headed Octavian with individualised features—are scarcer and command two to four times what a similar-condition laureate Augustus from Lugdunum costs. The physical quality varies by mint, too. Lugdunum’s engravers produced the sharpest, most consistent portraits—line up ten Lugdunum denarii and you’ll see the same model repeated faithfully. Spanish mint portraits can be rougher, sometimes crude. Eastern mint work varies: some Pergamum issues are beautiful, influenced by Hellenistic traditions of royal portraiture.

History in Metal

The reverse types of Augustan coinage read like a political diary stamped in metal. Follow them chronologically and you can trace the annexation of Egypt, the recovery of military standards from Parthia, the construction of a new civic identity, and the long search for an heir. Not every type carries a specific historical message—some recycle stock Republican imagery—but the ones that do are as precise as dated inscriptions.

The conquest remembered

Egypt’s fall in 30 BC was the defining event of Octavian’s career before the settlement of 27 BC. It ended the civil wars. It filled the treasury. It eliminated the last credible rival power in the Mediterranean. The coinage commemorated it repeatedly: crocodile reverses on denarii from an uncertain eastern mint, on the Nemausus asses discussed above, and in the imagery of the cistophori struck in Asia Minor. AEGVPTO CAPTA—“Egypt captured”—appears as a legend alongside the bound crocodile or rearing cobra. The message was never subtle.

The imagery served a dual purpose. It celebrated military victory. But it also signalled the annexation of Egypt’s wealth. The Ptolemaic treasury funded Augustus’s building programme, his veteran land grants, and the initial restocking of the Roman mint. When you hold an Augustan denarius, part of what you’re holding is Ptolemaic treasure melted down and restruck as Roman money.⁴

The Parthian standards

In 20 BC, Augustus secured the return of Roman military standards lost by Crassus at Carrhae in 53 BC and by Antony in 36 BC—without fighting a battle. Diplomacy achieved what two armies could not. The coinage treated this as a military triumph of the highest order. SIGNIS RECEPTIS types show a kneeling Parthian presenting a standard, an arch bearing recovered eagles, or a round temple housing them.⁴

These are among the most historically charged coins in the Roman series. Suetonius reports that Augustus considered the recovery one of his greatest achievements.⁵ The Res Gestae devotes an entire section to it.⁴ On the market, SIGNIS RECEPTIS denarii from the Spanish mints run $400–800 in VF. For a coin that commemorates a pivotal moment in Roman foreign policy, they remain underpriced relative to their historical weight.

As — Nemausus

Heads of Agrippa (left) and Augustus (right) back to back Agrippa wearing combined rostral crown and laurel wreath and Augustus is laureate

RIC I (second edition) Augustus 159 · 10 AD-14 AD

The civic crown and the shield

Two closely related types represent Augustus’s ideological foundation. OB CIVIS SERVATOS—“for saving citizens”—shows the corona civica, the oak wreath traditionally awarded to a soldier who saved a fellow citizen’s life in battle. Augustus claimed this honour in a broader sense: he had saved the entire citizenry by ending the civil wars. The wreath appears on coins, on the doorposts of his Palatine residence (according to Cassius Dio), and as an architectural motif on the Ara Pacis.⁶

The clipeus virtutis—the “shield of virtues”—inscribed with the four qualities VIRTVS, CLEMENTIA, IVSTITIA, PIETAS—was another Senate-granted honour that went directly onto the coinage. Both types are available as denarii for $300–700 in VF. Together with the SIGNIS RECEPTIS issue, three coins tell the story of Augustus’s self-presentation: military recoverer, civic saviour, and moral exemplar.

The divine father

DIVVS IVLIVS types—referring to the deified Caesar—served a purpose beyond filial piety. If Caesar was a god, then Augustus was the son of a god. The comet that appeared during Caesar’s funeral games in 44 BC was interpreted as his soul ascending to heaven; it appears on coins as the sidus Iulium, a star above or beside Caesar’s portrait.⁶

This is a case where the coin tells you more than the text. The literary sources describe the comet as a popular omen. The coins show Augustus actively controlling the narrative, placing the divine sign on state-issued money as evidence of supernatural sanction for his rule. A DIVVS IVLIVS denarius is not simply commemorative. It’s a theological argument in silver.

The capricorn

Augustus’s zodiacal sign—Capricorn—appears on denarii, aurei, and particularly the cistophori struck in Asia. His birthday was 23 September, which puts the Sun on the Virgo–Libra cusp—not in Capricorn by any reckoning. Suetonius says Augustus published his horoscope and struck coins with Capricorn as the sign “under which he was born” (quo natus esset).⁵ Modern scholars generally explain this as his Moon sign or conception sign (late December 64 BC falls in Capricorn), which carried greater weight in ancient astrological practice than the Sun sign does today. Whatever the reason, the goat-fish became a personal emblem. It appears on coins, on gemstones, on legionary standards. Capricorn denarii are moderately scarce: $400–1,000 depending on type and mint. The cistophori with capricorn reverse are more expensive—$800–2,000—but striking on their large flans.

The heirs on the money

The most common Augustus denarius by a wide margin shows Gaius and Lucius Caesar standing in military dress, each holding a spear and resting a hand on a round shield, with a simpulum and lituus (priestly implements) between them.¹ Struck at Lugdunum from about 2 BC to 12 AD, it was produced continuously for over a decade at the empire’s primary silver mint. Hundreds of die combinations are recorded.

The type commemorated Augustus’s grandsons being designated as heirs. Both were adopted in 17 BC. Both dead before 30: Lucius of illness at Massilia in 2 AD, Gaius of a wound received at the siege of Artagira in Armenia in 3 AD—he lingered for several months before dying at Limyra in Lycia on 21 February 4 AD.⁵ The coinage makes this loss visible through an odd detail: the type kept being struck after both young men were dead. A coin minted in 10 AD is not showing living heirs. It’s memorialising dead ones. The Lugdunum mint had been producing this type for so long that it persisted as the standard reverse long after its political purpose had been overtaken.

As — Nemausus

Heads of Agrippa (left) and Augustus (right) back to back, Agrippa wearing combined rostral crown and laurel wreath and Augustus wearing oak-wreath

RIC I (second edition) Augustus 158 · 9 BC-3 BC

Not every reverse carries a readable political message. Many base metal types at Rome show generic imagery—corn ears, altars, wreath patterns—that served everyday commerce without explicit propaganda. The moneyers had some latitude in choosing types, and some chose personal or family references rather than imperial themes. These fill the lower end of the market: $50–200 for an as in decent condition, worth studying for the minting system they illustrate rather than any single message they carry.

The Succession Problem

Augustus outlived nearly everyone he chose to succeed him. The coinage is the most public record of those failed successions—names and faces that appear on the money, then vanish.

Marcellus, Augustus’s nephew and first chosen heir, married Julia in 25 BC and died of illness in 23 BC, at Baiae. He was nineteen. No coins that can be securely attributed to his succession survive, which itself is telling: the plan wasn’t advanced enough to warrant public announcement on the money.

Agrippa was the fallback. Marcus Vipsanius Agrippa—general, admiral, builder, Augustus’s closest associate since adolescence—married Julia after Marcellus’s death and functioned as co-regent in all but name. His portrait appears on the Nemausus asses alongside Augustus’s, one of the rare instances where a non-emperor shares an obverse with the princeps on imperial-era coinage. He held tribunician power and imperium, making him Augustus’s constitutional near-equal in the provinces. Dead in 12 BC, aged 51.⁶

Then the grandsons. Gaius and Lucius were the solution that seemed certain to work. Two heirs—redundancy in the succession plan. The coinage from 2 BC onward shouts their names across every denarius leaving Lugdunum. Both dead before their thirtieth birthdays.

What came next was Tiberius. Not the first choice. Not the second. Arguably not the third. Augustus’s stepson—Livia’s child from her first marriage, no blood relation to the Julian line. Augustus adopted him in 4 AD, the same year Gaius died, alongside the younger Agrippa Postumus, who was later exiled and killed under murky circumstances.⁵

Tiberius appears on late Augustan coins as TI CAESAR, usually in military dress or a triumphal chariot. The contrast with the Gaius and Lucius types is sharp: those show young men at the threshold of their careers, idealised and confident. The Tiberius types show a middle-aged soldier with a record of proven competence and no particular charisma. Augustus reportedly said he pitied the Roman people, who would have to live under such slow jaws—sub tam lentis maxillis (Suetonius, Tiberius 21).⁵

For collectors, the succession types form a natural thematic set. A Nemausus crocodile as (Agrippa), a Gaius and Lucius denarius, and a Tiberius-as-heir denarius tell the story of three succession attempts across four coins. Add a DIVVS IVLIVS issue and you have four generations of dynastic politics. Budget: roughly $1,500 for the set in presentable condition. Few coin collections achieve that kind of narrative coherence at any budget.

Denarius — Colonia Patricia

Head of Augustus, laureate, right

RIC I (second edition) Augustus 119 · 18 BC

Collecting Augustus

Augustan coinage sits at a particular point in the market: expensive enough to require deliberation, affordable enough that a determined collector can build something meaningful. The price floor is set by the denarius, and the denarius is set by the Gaius and Lucius type.

Getting started — under $500

Buy one good denarius. Not five mediocre ones. The Gaius and Lucius type is the obvious choice—common enough that good examples appear constantly, historically significant, visually strong when the strike cooperates. Spend $350–450 on a VF with complete legends and a centred portrait from a reputable dealer. Handle it. Photograph it. Read the legends letter by letter.

A Nemausus crocodile as is the natural second purchase: $100–250 depending on the series. Bronze rather than silver, so the preservation is different. The double portrait and crocodile reverse are among the most recognisable designs in Roman coinage. Together with the denarius, these two coins span Augustus’s monetary system from silver to bronze, imperial to regional.

Building depth — $1,000–5,000

Now you can be selective.

One approach: a reverse-type collection. One example each of SIGNIS RECEPTIS, OB CIVIS SERVATOS, the Gaius and Lucius, and a capricorn denarius. Four coins that cover Augustus’s major propaganda themes. Budget: $1,500–3,000 for VF examples, more if you hold out for strong centering.

Another: a mint collection. One coin from Lugdunum, one from a Spanish mint, one from an eastern mint, one from Rome. Harder—eastern mint denarii are scarcer—but it illustrates the geographic range and teaches you to see the stylistic differences between workshops.

Condition starts to matter more here. A VF denarius at $400 is a respectable coin. An EF at $800 is a significantly better one—sharper portrait, crisper legends, sometimes traces of original surface lustre. The jump from VF to EF is where the visual payoff is steepest.

The premium path

EF-to-near-mint denarii run $800–2,000 for common types. Scarcer types or exceptional strikes reach $3,000–5,000 at CNG, Roma, or NAC. At this level, provenance matters. A coin with a published collection history—ex Hess-Leu 1957, ex Hunt, ex NAC 2004—carries both a premium and a measure of security. Published provenance means prior expert examination.

Gold enters the picture. Common aurei in VF start around $5,000. Look for the Gaius and Lucius type or a simple laureate-bust reverse. Prices for Augustan gold have climbed steadily over the past decade; material that sold for $4,000 in 2015 now brings $6,000–8,000. Supply is limited and demand from both institutional and private collections has tightened the market.

What condition to target

Augustan denarii were struck on relatively small flans, and centering varies. Many coins are well-struck at the centre but lose peripheral legend to the edge. A coin graded VF for wear can be unsatisfying if half the obverse legend is missing. Check photographs carefully—and be sceptical of images that crop the coin tightly or show only the better-centred side.

Surface quality matters more than it does on late Roman bronze. A denarius with smooth original surfaces and light cabinet tone is a different proposition from one that’s been harshly cleaned and artificially retoned. CNG and Roma describe surfaces honestly in their lot descriptions. Smaller dealers sometimes don’t. Learn to read auction photographs: bright, harsh lighting often masks surface problems that diffused lighting would reveal.

Where to buy

CNG (Classical Numismatic Group) — biweekly e-auctions and quarterly feature sales. Roman Republican and early imperial material is a house strength.

Roma Numismatics and Leu Numismatik — high-end ancients, strong photography, detailed descriptions. Expect market price or above, but the material is genuine and well-documented.

VCoins and MA-Shops — fixed-price platforms with vetted professional dealers. Good for specific gaps at known prices.

NAC and Nomos — Swiss houses specialising in museum-quality ancients. If you’re spending $5,000 or more, these sales are worth watching.

Heritage Auctions — Roman material in their world coin sales, largest US bidding pool for ancients.

Identifying Your Coin

You’ve got an Augustus coin in front of you—in hand or on screen—and need to pin down what it is. Here’s the sequence that works.

Determine the metal and denomination. Gold: aureus. Silver, roughly 18mm and 3.5–4g: denarius. Large brass (golden-coloured), ~33mm and 25g+: sestertius. Smaller brass, ~28mm: dupondius. Red copper, ~26mm: as. Smaller copper: semis or quadrans. The metal narrows the mint and date range immediately.

Read the obverse legend. Augustus coins carry several legend formulae depending on period. Early (pre-27 BC): CAESAR DIVI F or IMP CAESAR. Middle: AVGVSTVS or CAESAR AVGVSTVS. Late: AVGVSTVS DIVI F, IMP CAESAR DIVI F AVGVSTVS, or variants with additional titles like PONT MAX, TRIB POT, COS XII. The titles accumulated through the reign—more titles generally means later date.

Check the portrait. Bare head: earlier issues. Laureate: standard from roughly the mid-20s BC onward. A young, realistic face with individual features puts you in the early period. An idealised, eternally youthful face could be from anywhere in the mature reign.

Read the reverse and look it up. Match the type against the series in this guide, then cross-reference with RIC I² (Sutherland, 1984), which is organised by mint, then denomination within each mint.¹ Online, OCRE provides free searchable access to the same data with specimen photographs—filter by ruler, denomination, mint, and reverse type for the fastest route to an answer.

Or try the NumisLens Visual Wizard—answer a few questions about metal, denomination, and portrait type, and the system narrows to a specific RIC reference from the Augustan catalog.

Fakes and Forgeries

Augustan coins are faked, but the economics are different from late Roman bronze. A denarius at $300–500 is worth counterfeiting. An as at $80 usually is not.

Modern fakes

Cast copies—made by taking impressions from a genuine coin—are the most common threat for denarii. The signs: soft, mushy detail on the hair and legend, a slightly porous surface under magnification, rounded rather than sharp edges, and sometimes a visible seam on the rim. The weight may be close (forgers can tune the alloy) but the feel is different. Struck coins have a crisp, directional flow to the metal that castings never replicate.

Die-struck counterfeits—from modern dies cut to imitate ancient ones—are rarer and harder to detect. These tend to come from workshops in Bulgaria, Turkey, and Lebanon. The die style is usually the giveaway: letters too regular, portrait too smooth, everything too ‘perfect.’ Real ancient dies were cut by hand, and the small irregularities of handwork are missing from machine-engraved modern copies. For expensive pieces—aurei, scarce denarii—buy from dealers who guarantee authenticity in writing and compare the die to confirmed examples on OCRE or in CNG’s archival photographs.

Fourrées: the ancient forgeries

Augustus’s denarii were faked in antiquity, too. Fourrées are coins with a base metal core plated in a thin silver skin. The plating was applied by wrapping a silver sheet around a copper or bronze core and striking, or by dipping the core in molten silver. When the plating wears through, the copper shows as dark patches or green corrosion breaking through the surface.

They’re collected in their own right. Fourrées provide evidence of ancient counterfeiting operations, and scholars use them to study die linkages because the forgers sometimes employed dies stolen from legitimate mints.¹¹ A fourrée Augustus denarius runs $30–80 depending on type and how much plating survives. Don’t pay genuine denarius prices for one, but don’t dismiss them either.

Practical defences

Buy from dealers with return policies and written authentication guarantees. For purchases over $1,000, third-party authentication has practical value—NGC Ancients grades ancient coins if you want the security of an independent opinion. Compare the die to published examples. And remember: a price significantly below market is the single most reliable indicator that something is wrong.

Questions Collectors Ask

References

Sources cited throughout this guide. For a full bibliography of Augustan numismatics, see the introduction to RIC I².¹

1. Sutherland, C.H.V. (1984). Roman Imperial Coinage, Volume I, revised edition. London: Spink.
2. Zanker, P. (1988). The Power of Images in the Age of Augustus. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press.
3. Wallace-Hadrill, A. (1986). “Image and Authority in the Coinage of Augustus.” Journal of Roman Studies, 76, pp. 66–87.
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