CNG 85, Lot: 84. Estimate $500. Sold for $1317. This amount does not include the buyer’s fee.

ARMENIA, Cilician Armenia. Baronial. Roupen I. 1080-1095. Æ Pogh (20mm, 2.52 g, 4h). Cross pattée, with pellet in each angle / Cross pattée, with pellet in each angle. AC 245 var. (no pellets); MAC 3 var. (same); CNG 61, lot 2309 (same obv. die). VF, rough red-brown patina. Rare.

From the R.A. Collection. Ex Classical Numismatic Group XXVII (29 September 1993), lot 83.

Following the annexations of their territory in Greater Armenia (first by the Byzantines, then by the Seljuks), the various noble families began to travel southward in the mid-eleventh century in order to resettle in Cilicia where the Taurus mountains offered them some protection. Shortly thereafter, Roupen I established a fully independent Armenian principality in Cilicia, declaring the territory free from Byzantine rule in 1080.