Stephen Album Rare Coins
Auction 18 16-18 January 2014
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SASANIAN KINGDOM: Khusro I, 531-579, AR drachm (4.10g), MR (Marw), year 9, G--, a very interesting contemporary imitation, with the bust facing left, and all the obverse text retrograde, the reverse text correct, full portrait, EF, R.
This type was published by F.D.J. Paruck in 1924, from the collection of the Russian General Bartholomaei, who died in 1870. The plates were published in some obscure location by Dorn in 1873, without the text. Both the text and drawings were republished by Paruck, and this piece appears on table 23, item #16, struck from very similar dies (probably different). We hammered down a similar piece in auction 16 (lot 34) for $640, struck from the same obverse but a different reverse die, where I read the mint as PR, but it was probably MR (Marw), which is very clear on this piece. The obverse reveals an earlier period of the same die used for our previous specimen, as, for example, the die break between the ruler's name and the right crescent is much smaller on this piece that on the last one.
Estimate: 700-800 USD
This type was published by F.D.J. Paruck in 1924, from the collection of the Russian General Bartholomaei, who died in 1870. The plates were published in some obscure location by Dorn in 1873, without the text. Both the text and drawings were republished by Paruck, and this piece appears on table 23, item #16, struck from very similar dies (probably different). We hammered down a similar piece in auction 16 (lot 34) for $640, struck from the same obverse but a different reverse die, where I read the mint as PR, but it was probably MR (Marw), which is very clear on this piece. The obverse reveals an earlier period of the same die used for our previous specimen, as, for example, the die break between the ruler's name and the right crescent is much smaller on this piece that on the last one.
Estimate: 700-800 USD