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Maurice Tiberius. 582-602. AV Solidus (22mm, 3.35 g, 8h). Alexandria mint. Dated IY 5 (AD 586/7). Helmeted, draped, and cuirassed facing bust, holding globus cruciger / Angel standing facing, holding long staff surmounted by staurogram and globus cruciger; Є (date)//CONOB. DOC 257 (Constantine in Numidia?); MIBE 28; SB 573 (Constantine in Numidia?); Lanz 74, 871 (same obv. die). Toned with some underlying luster, slight rotated double strike on obverse, a few light scratches. Good VF. Very rare and unusual.
From the Joshua Lee Collection. Ex Aventine Numismatics; Goldberg 104 (12 June 2018), lot 3370 (weight erroneously given as 4.35 g and attributed to Constantinople).
This unusual specimen belongs to the rare corpus of solidi which, according to Hahn and Metlich in MIBE (2009), were struck on certain indiction years. Hahn most recently placed this series at Alexandria, explaining that “the Alexandrian gold coinage under Maurice is very similar to what we have observed under Tiberius II ...The relevant material .... consists of 29 normal and 11 light-weight solidi, 1 semissis and 16 tremisses. These can be divided into several types some of which have been known previously but were erroneously attributed to Sicily (solidi nos. 28, 29) or Thessalonica ...” (Hahn, 47). What is unusual, however, about this specimen is that while on stylistic grounds the attribution to Alexandria is correct, the weight on this example is very light at 3.35 g which corresponds to the weight of some of the 20-siliquae issues. Under Hahn and Metlich’s classifications, Alexandria did indeed strike light weight solidi, however, these were always clearly marked in the dies. This coin, however, is not struck from dies indicating that is was intended to be a light weight issue. It is, however, an obverse die match to the Lanz 74/Metlich Collection coin (which is paired with a 20 siliquae reverse die).
Closing Date and Time: 21 February 2024 at 13:39:40 ET.
All winning bids are subject to a 20% buyer’s fee.
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