Watch List notes:

Abbasid, fals, al-Mada'in 181h, obv., in margin: mint and date, rev., in margin ...]amir al-mu'minin 'Abd...[, 3.75g (Shamma -), fine and of the highest rarity, apparently unpublished. Al-Mada'in, 'The two cities,' was an epithet used for the ancient Ctesiphon. The oldest part of al-Mada'in lay on the eastern side of the Tigris, and appears as an extremely rare Umayyad dirham mint under the name al-Madinat al-'Atiqa, 'The ancient city.' Al-Mada'in was the seat of a governorship in Umayyad times, and the Abbasid caliph al-Mansur held his court there in 136h, but following the foundation of Baghdad nearby its importance rapidly dwindled, with many of the inhabitants moving - voluntarily or otherwise - to the new capital. Although extremely rare Abbasid dirhams of al-Mada'in are known, no fulus appear to have been published.
(1500-2000 GBP)