402, Lot: 500. Estimate $300. Sold for $260. This amount does not include the buyer’s fee.

Trajan. AD 98-117. Æ Semis (18mm, 3.03 g, 6h). Dardanian mines issue. Rome mint. Struck circa AD 99-102. Laureate head right / DARDANICI, Pax standing left, holding olive branch and gathering up drapery. RIC II 703 (Quadrans); Woytek 608a; cf. Simic & Vasic 6. VF, dark green patina, a few cleaning marks. Rare.

Under Trajan and Hadrian several series of bronze quadrantes and semisses 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. It has been suggested that these mines issues 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 during any other period.