Nomos AG
Auction 18 5 May 2019
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KINGS OF ARMENIA. Tigranes II 'the Great', 95-56 BC. Tetrachalkon (Bronze, 21.5 mm, 7.03 g, 11 h), series 7, but a hybrid with Tigranes the Younger, Artaxata, year 28 (KH) = 69-68. Diademed and draped bust of Tigranes the Younger to right, wearing five-pointed tiara decorated with a comet. Rev. BAΣIΛEΩΣ TIΓPANOY Nike advancing to left, holding wreath with her extended right hand; on outer left, date HK above monogram of ΞEP monogram. ACV -. CAA -. Kovacs 98. Very rare; glossy dark green patina. Die fault on the obverse, otherwise, good very fine.
From the collection of Yerets' Kariatin, Switzerland.
If we follow Kovacs's reconstruction of the coinage, and we do, the portraits on coins in the name of a Tigranes who wears a tiara ornamented with a star between two eagles are of Tigranes II, but if the tiara has a comet (a star with a tail) but no eagles, it is a portrait of Tigranes the Younger (77/6-66 BC), a son of Tigranes II who was born c. 100 BC. Since, however, both father and son were, for a time, co-rulers, their coins were issued contemporaneously at the same mints. This resulted in mules or hybrids, in which one ruler's obverse was used with the other's reverse. In the present case we have an obverse of Tigranes the Younger paired with a reverse dated to his father's 28th regnal year rather than his son's 8th (as Kovacs 151). Another example of this very rare hybrid type was sold, unknowingly, as Naumann 65, 246, resulting in quite a bargain for its clever buyer.
From the collection of Yerets' Kariatin, Switzerland.
If we follow Kovacs's reconstruction of the coinage, and we do, the portraits on coins in the name of a Tigranes who wears a tiara ornamented with a star between two eagles are of Tigranes II, but if the tiara has a comet (a star with a tail) but no eagles, it is a portrait of Tigranes the Younger (77/6-66 BC), a son of Tigranes II who was born c. 100 BC. Since, however, both father and son were, for a time, co-rulers, their coins were issued contemporaneously at the same mints. This resulted in mules or hybrids, in which one ruler's obverse was used with the other's reverse. In the present case we have an obverse of Tigranes the Younger paired with a reverse dated to his father's 28th regnal year rather than his son's 8th (as Kovacs 151). Another example of this very rare hybrid type was sold, unknowingly, as Naumann 65, 246, resulting in quite a bargain for its clever buyer.