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Research Coins: Electronic Auction

 

Very Rare lillah Drachm

286, Lot: 457. Estimate $150.
Sold for $950. This amount does not include the buyer’s fee.

Khusro type with lillah. AR Drachm (32mm, 3.92 g, 3h). GW (Qumm or Gurgān?) mint. Dated PYE 35 (AH 46/7 / AD 666/7). Crowned Sasanian-style bust right; lillah in margin; c/m’s: forepart of sēnmurw right within oval incuse and forepart of sēnmurw left within oval incuse / Fire altar flanked by attendants; star and crescent flanking flames. SICA 1, -; SCC -; Walker -; Album A6; for c/m: Göbl KM 3 and KM 11. VF, toned, long test scrape on reverse. Very rare.


From the J. P. Righetti Collection, 71.

The lillah coinage is quite reminiscent of the Sasanian drachms of Khusro with APD in Pahlavi in the second quarter of the obverse margin (see, for example, Göbl 211). Album (p. 23) notes the possibility that the lillah drachms were “...local imitations with inauthentic mints and dates, produced either by the Arabs or their pro-Sasanian, Hephthalite, or other opponents. They were likely produced with what could be easily read as either lillah in Arabic or the first two letters of APD in Pahlavi, so that they would be acceptable to everyone, especially in eastern Iran, Central Asia, and along the Silk Road.”