Sale: CNG 69, Lot: 1866. Estimate $500.  Closing Date: Wednesday, 8 June 2005.  Sold For $1600. This amount does not include the buyer’s fee.

BASIL I, the Macedonian, with CONSTANTINE. 867-886 AD. Æ Pattern "Solidus" (4.16 gm, 6h). Constantinople mint. Struck circa 868-879 AD. +IhSUS X RISTOS *, facing bust of Christ / [bASI]LIOS ET CONSTANT' AUGG I', crowned facing busts of Basil and Constantine, holding labarum between. DOC III -; SB -. VF, dark green patina. Struck on a squared-off flan. ($500)

This piece appears to be a mint pattern for a proposed solidus of Basil I. The obverse is adopted from a solidus of his predecessor Michael III (DOC III 3; SB 1688), while the reverse is unknown as a solidus type. The portrait type of Basil and his son holding a labarum is used on a follis (DOC III 8; SB 1721), which has been regarded by some as a product of a provincial mint. This off-metal pattern for a solidus, if that is what it is, could provide evidence for SB 1721 being an issue of the central mint, matching a proposed parallel type for a gold solidus. The use of the Christ portrait and the labarum attribute may have been too close a link to the solidi of Michael, whom Basil had in fact overthrown and murdered.