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From Cassius to Cahn: The Hess Divo Story of a Remarkable Aureus
- maximc918
- May 14
- 6 min read
Updated: May 15
By Maxim Crispin
The murder of the world’s most famous imperator, and the civil war that spurred the rise of one of history’s great empires — we see a moment from that time, frozen on this aureus of gleaming gold. Gaius Cassius Longinus, co-conspirator with Brutus in the assassination of Julius Caesar, here proclaims liberty in his own name for the Roman people. Even now, the aplustre symbol on the reverse still boasts his ill-fated declaration of naval supremacy, an immortal testament of his hubris.
But there is more to this coin’s story than the part that we commonly know. What happened in the over two millennia from then until now? What stories could this coin tell if it could talk, and whose hands did it pass through?
These are questions that too often in our field go unanswered. Whether for a lack of research, missing references, or knowledge lost to the grave, such objects of immense timescales are often reduced to objects of the moment — pretty pieces of metal with a quick attribution, a grade, and maybe a slab of plastic to seal away their secrets.
When we at Hess Divo came across this aureus, it too was missing most of this story. And yet, with the help of our Sixbid Classical Archive, we are able to trace a remarkable tale of intrigue, loss, endurance, and war with the journey of this artifact. From Belgian nobility to a man convicted of war crimes against the Belgians. From German numismatists and military high command to Jewish war refugees. From Cassius to Cahn.
The coin begins its recorded journey as a plated coin in the collection of the Belgian Vicomte Albéric du Chastel de la Howardries (1842-1919), displayed with a plaster cast in the splendid 1889 sale of 646 of his coins at Rollin et Feuardent in Paris. Du Chastel was a man of considerable independent means, and by the age of 17 was already possessed with the goal of single-handedly building an ancient coin collection of the highest caliber for the Royal Library in Brussels. For decades thereafter he purchased from the most prominent collections, ultimately achieving his goal with the 300000 Belgian Franc purchase of his final collection by the Belgian state – a sum that could have purchased about 87 kilograms of gold at the time. He was, unquestionably, among the foremost collectors of ancient coins in the world at the end of the 19th century.
The Cassius aureus then made its way to the collection of the celebrated German numismatist, Ernst Julius Haeberlin (1847-1925), an expert in Roman Republican coinage and the author of the 1910 magnum opus Aes Grave, das Schwergeld Roms und Mittelitaliens. A relentless traveller, Haeberlin meticulously recorded the coins of over 100 collections throughout Europe for his work.
While in the possession of Haeberlin, the Cassius aureus passed through the hands of Dr. Max von Bahrfeldt, who published the coin as the only plated example of its type in his 1923 reference work, Die römische Goldmünzenprägung während der Republik und unter Augustus. Bahrfeldt was a longtime personal friend of Haeberlin, and arguably the most controversial man in the history of the numismatic field.
Bahrfeldt (1856-1936) was a German Lieutenant General in WWI who was sentenced to death in absentia by the Belgians for accusations of war crimes against civilians at the Battle of Charleroi. Within his home country, he was honored by the Weimar Republic with a lifetime achievement commemorative medal, featuring his stern and neatly coiffed facing portrait and his coat of arms, in 1923 (the same year that he published the Cassius aureus). A man of fascinating duality, as ironically attested by the coin of Janus on his personal coat of arms, he was also a talented numismatist specializing in the Roman Republic. For many years after his Belgian war crime conviction and his eventual sympathies towards the Third Reich, his work was ostracized outside of Germany in favor of his English peer, Sydenham.
Haeberlin’s collection was sold by the Cahn brothers and Hess in Frankfurt in 1933, and it is in this magnificent catalog that this aureus appears once again. The sale was truly extraordinary, due in no small part to the fact that Herbert Cahn, then a precocious boy of only 13 years old, had written the catalog with help of Dr. von Bahrfeldt (a pairing that we might call “stranger than fiction”)! Despite the quality of the collection and the academic rigor of its cataloging, the sale was doomed from the start, as Adolf Hitler had burned the Reichstag and seized dictatorial power mere months before. Many spectacular coins including this one went unsold (the famous Swiss collector Walter Niggeler admitted that he regretted every coin he did not buy in this sale), and Erich Cahn remarked that “[Though] the collection was of the highest quality[,] the Haeberlin sale was undoubtedly overshadowed by the political upheaval of the time, and with the benefit of hindsight it can be seen as a last bright light which signaled the approaching end for both these great Frankfurt numismatic auction houses.” The Cahn brothers, themselves Jewish, fled Nazi Germany with this coin.
As with the formation of Adolph Hess AG Luzern (the precursor of Hess Divo AG Zürich) before them, in the midst of political terror the young Cahn brothers were forced to reimagine their business in the relative safety of Switzerland. Their mother coordinated for them to travel in secret to Basel, which at the time was a known safe harbor for German Jewish refugees. Fortunately, the brothers thrived. This aureus was sold in 1935 at their new auction house, Münzhandlung Basel, as one of the more valuable coins in a great string of sales that included the collection of Prince Waldeck of Arolsen and marked a new era for Swiss numismatics.
We offer this exceptional coin, and its story, for sale as lot 168 in Auction 343.
Provenance:
Ex Vicomte Albéric du Chastel de la Howardries (1842-1919) Collection
Ex Ernst Julius Haeberlin (1847-1925) Collection
Lieutenant General Dr. Max von Bahrfeldt (1856-1936), Die Römische Goldmünzenprägung während der Republik und unter Augustus (1923), No. 60, example 18, plate VII, 10 (this coin, and the only one of its type photographed)
Ex Stock of Herbert and Erich Cahn, in their possession while fleeing Nazi Germany
Ex “The America Collection”
Auction Rollin & Feuardent, Paris, Du Chastel (27-29 May 1889), 181
Auction Adolf E. Cahn / Adolf Hess Nachf., Frankfurt Am Main, Haeberlin (17 July 1933), 2881
Auction Münzhandlung Basel, Basel, Auction 3 (5 March 1935), 109
Auction Stack’s, New York (17-18 September 1980), 236
Are you looking for similar stories for your own collection? We encourage you to consider the Gold tier of our Sixbid Classical Archive – a fully searchable and constantly expanding database of coin provenances from the 19th and 20th centuries. Our Gold tier provides access to the most valuable provenances from our digitized records.
If you would prefer a professional assessment of your collection, we invite you to reach out to Hess Divo AG for a quote for private provenance consultation. With a tradition of 150 years in numismatics, a partnership with the Sixbid Classical Archive, and a private library of thousands of auction catalogs and collection records spanning hundreds of years, Hess Divo is unequivocally the world standard for provenance research for ancient coins. Let us tell the stories of your treasures, as they deserve to be told.
— Maxim Crispin, numismatist at Hess Divo AG and archivist of the Sixbid Classical Archive