Puns are fun and we particularly enjoy ancient coins which provide us with outrageous visual puns. The Greeks started numismatic punning, the Celts continued the tradition, often with greater subtlety or obfuscating obscurity. This very rare silver drachm, struck in Aquitaine c.240-220 BC, is a very early and quite obvious example. It copies an early 4th century Greek drachm of Rhoda (modern Rosas, north-east Spain) which shows a rose flower on the reverse, rhodon being Greek for rose (as in rhododendron, 'rose tree'). The Gallic version of the coin perpetuates the pun, but in a different form. What was the head of a Syracusan or Carthaginian nymph has become a kind of crested male head of amazingly native American style, and the four-petal rose now incorporates a complex cruciform motif. This fascinating Iron Age coin is rarely seen for sale in France and hardly ever featured in English or American catalogues. If you don't have a specimen in your collection, you should seize this one while you can. Its condition is way above average for the type. Chris Rudd November List.                                                                     21.11.05