PHOENICIA, Tyre. 126/5 BC-AD 65/6. Æ Shekel (24mm, 11.78 g, 12h). Laureate head of Melkart right, [lion skin around neck] / Eagle standing left on prow; palm frond in background; to left, IE or Iς (pseudo-date) above club; blundered monograms to right. Cf. DCA Tyre 952; cf. D. Hendin, "Bronze shekel of Jerusalem recently discovered" in The Celator 6.10 (October 1992), p. 36; cf. HGC 10, 357 (for type). Dark green/black surfaces, light roughness, a little off center on reverse. VF.
E. Cohen, in DCA, lists these bronzes as fourrée cores. In his article in The Celator, though, D. Hendin notes that the surfaces of the bronze coin he observed had no indication that it was a fourrée core, and he contends that it is an official strike in bronze. The surfaces on the present coin also appear to be consistent with a bronze issue, rather than a fourrée core.