54, Lot: 136. Estimate $200. Sold for $170. This amount does not include the buyer’s fee.

Anonymous. Time of Trajan and Hadrian. Æ Quadrans (3.42 gm). Dalmatia mines. Helmeted bust of Mars right / METAL • DELM, Cuirass. RIC II 1014 (Hadrian); BMCRE 534 (Hadrian); Simic and Vasic, "La Monnaie des Mines Romaines de L'Illyrie," in Revue Numismatique 1977, 18; Cohen 1517. VF, dark green-brown patina. Rare. ($200)

Under Trajan and Hadrian several series of bronze quadrantes were struck in the names of the imperial mines in Noricum, Dalmatia, Pannonia and Moesia (Dardania). These operations supplied metal for the mint at Rome, and perhaps were the sites of workshops to produce coinage for local circulation or as donatives. Some scholars believe these pieces were struck at Rome itself, and served some unidentified function, much as the contemporary "nome" coinage struck at Alexandria in Egypt. Whatever the circumstances, these pieces saw limited use, and, except for one rare type struck by Marcus Aurelius, were not issued at any other period.