Watch List notes:

Elagabalus. AE 31, 13.82g (5h). Laodicea ad Mare, Syria. Obv: IMP CAES M...Bust laureate right, fold of cloak on front shoulder. Rx: Frontal quadriga bearing Stone of Emesa, decorated with eagle standing front, head right, with raised wings, and flanked by four religious standards ("parasols"), two on each side; above the stone, crescent and annulet (?); circular legend naming Laodicea as colony and metropolis is off flan or not struck up, in exergue IIII PR, between the standards probably Δ on left and E on right. Cf. Meyer, Bronzeprägung von Laodikeia, Jahrb. Für Num. 1987/8, pl. 18, B (above stone crescent and star, ANS). Another example, with star only above the stone: CNG 93, 22 May 2013, lot 976. Possibly only the third recorded specimen of this Stone of Emesa reverse type at Laodicea ad Mare. VF+

Ex Helianthus annuus Collection

Types showing the Stone of Emesa in a quadriga under Elagabalus appeared on the coins of only a few provincial cites, Alexandria in Egypt, Aelia Capitolina in Judaea, Neapolis in Samaria, Hierapolis-Castabala in Syria, and now Laodicea in Seleucis and Pieria, and are generally even rarer than the similar types on Roman imperial aurei and denarii. In addition our coin gives Laodicea the interesting title "Metropolis of the Four Provinces", that is metropolis of the four regions Seleucis and Pieria, Phoenicia, Commagene, and Coele-Syria, which Laodicea was apparently able to retain after Septimius Severus took it away from Antioch as punishment for Antioch's support of Pescennius Niger in the civil war of 193-4: see E. Meyer in the article cited above, pp. 68-73