From the Gemini V Auction, Closed January 6, 2009.

Lot # 777 Estimate: US$48000

M. Brutus, struck by L. Plaetorius Cestianus. Silver denarius (3.50 
gm). Military mint, 43-42 BC. Bare head of Brutus right, BRVT IMP 
above, L PLAET CEST behind / Pileus (cap of Liberty) flanked by two 
daggers, [E]ID MAR below. Crawford 508/3. Sydenham 1301 (R9). Cohen 
15 (350 Fr.). Sear, Imperators 216. H.A. Cahn, EIDibus MARtiis, 
Quaderni ticinesi XVIII, 1989, p. 219, 20a-d, pl. III (our die 
pair). Of considerable rarity: Cahn’s corpus includes just 56 
denarii of this type, from seven obverse dies and 25 reverse dies. 
Very strong portrait with full detail. E and part of I in Eid Mar 
removed by a scrape from 6:00 to 9:00 on the reverse. Light 
consistent porosity, otherwise extremely fine. 

With this famous reverse type, Brutus commemorates his assassination 
of Julius Caesar on the Ides of March, 44 BC, naming the date, 
showing two of the daggers used, and implying that the deed was done 
to secure liberty for the Roman people (the liberty cap). This 
anti-autocratic sentiment does not prevent him from 
placing his own portrait on the coin, in the manner of a Hellenistic 
monarch and, indeed, Caesar himself shortly before his death! Voted 
the number-one, greatest ancient coin of all in Harlan Berk’s 100 
Greatest Ancient Coins (Atlanta 2008), p. 78, this is one of the few 
ancient coin types to be mentioned by a contemporary historian: Dio 
Cassius in his Roman History (xlvii.25) states that Brutus “struck 
coins on which were represented a liberty cap and two daggers, to 
show by this design and also by the inscription that he had, in 
concert with Cassius, given liberty to his country”. 

  ... Lot 777 sold for high bid of $50000 [ $57500, or approx 42550 EUR, 39100 GBP including the 15% buyers premium.] 

Gemini Auctions' results, text and images are re-used by the kind permission of:
    Freeman & Sear (www.freemanandsear.com)
 and Harlan J Berk (www.harlanjberk.com)