Zuz Overstruck on a Fourrée

Sale: CNG 81, Lot: 619. Estimate $500.  Closing Date: Wednesday, 20 May 2009.  Sold For $1750. This amount does not include the buyer’s fee.

JUDAEA, Bar Kochba Revolt. 132-135 CE. AR Zuz – Denarius (1.57 g, 6h). Dated year 2 (133/4 CE). Grape bunch on vine / Flagon; palm frond to right. Mildenberg 39 (O7/R18’); Meshorer 253; Hendin 696; Bromberg 458 (same dies). Near VF, toned, some deposits/leaching on the obverse. Overstruck on an fourrée of an uncertain drachm or denarius, extremely rare thus.

See D. Hendin, "Plated Coins of Bar Kochba" in INJ 4 (1980), for a detailed look at such issues. All coins of the Bar Kochba Revolt were overstruck on foreign coins, usually Roman denarii or drachms; the mint produced no flans of its own. Apparently, on extremely rare occasions, plated coins were overstruck without notice by the mint workers and entered circulation. This coin is such an example, and is one of only a handful known: Hendin recorded only four examples (= Mildenberg 112.2, 203.14, 213.22, and 236.2), to which Mildenberg's study added a further three (57.16, 154.7, and 237.1).