Claudius aureus brings £4,000

A rare Roman gold coin unearthed by a beekeeper in the UK in 2023 made £4,000 at auction. Rob Turrell was metal detecting on a field near Diss in Norfolk when he hit the find of a lifetime. The aureus weighs 7.70 grams of pure gold, and was struck by the emperor Claudius in AD 41-2 with the portrait and name of his father Nero Claudius Drusus, a highly respected general and consul.

The inscription records Claudius Drusus's celebrated campaigns subjugating the Germanic tribes in 12-9 BC. Claudius Drusus was renowned in the Roman army for defeating many Celtic chiefs in combat before his untimely death in 9 BC after a riding accident. Needing to establish military legitimacy, Claudius launched the invasion of Britain in AD 43. He sent a force of 4 legions plus auxillaries, some 40,000 to 50,000 men. Claudius died on October 13, AD 54, at the age of 63. Historians widely agree he was assassinated. The consensus implicates his wife, Agrippina the Younger, who allegedly had him fed a dish of poisoned mushrooms. The aureus, a month’s pay for a Roman soldier, was likely lost shortly after Claudius invaded in AD 43.

Gold leaf from Napoleon's crown makes €625,000

A golden laurel leaf from Napoleon's crown went under the hammer in 2017. Napoleon crowned himself emperor at the Notre Dame cathedral in Paris in 1804.

He famously took the Roman-style laurel wreath and put it on his own head, instead of letting Pope Pius VII do the honors. At a fitting for the crown leading up to the spectacular event, Napoleon had complained that it was too heavy. So goldsmith Martin-Guillaume Biennais took six leaves out of the crown, later giving one to each of his six daughters. The original wreath was melted down after Napoleon's fall in the wake of the Battle of Waterloo. The crown, modelled on the one worn by Roman caesars, is the centerpiece of Jacques-Louis David's monumental painting, "The Coronation of Napoleon" at the Louvre.

The crown Napoleon wore at his coronation had 44 large gold laurel leaves and 12 smaller ones.

Napoleon's crown cost 8,000 francs, with the box it was stored in a further 1,300 francs.