Extremely Rare Transitional Issue

CNG 87, Lot: 1209. Estimate $1500. Sold for $1600. This amount does not include the buyer’s fee.

Maurice Tiberius. As Caesar, 582, or Augustus 582-602. AV Solidus (22mm, 4.46 g, 6h). Constantinople mint, 3rd officina. Struck 5-31 August 582. D [N Nb] TIbЄ RI P P AVG, cuirassed bust facing, wearing crown with cross and pendilia, holding globus cruciger and shield with horseman motif / VICTORI A AVGG, angel standing facing, holding long staff terminating in staurogram and globus cruciger; Γ//CONOB. P.D. Whitting, “A new transitional Byzantine issue of A.D. 582,” NC 1960, pp. 133-5; DOC -; MIBE 3 (same obv. die); SB 475. EF, areas of flat strike. Extremely rare first issue without the double name.

Whitting proposed that the two successive “N”s in the obverse legend point to this being a joint issue of Tiberius II and Maurice Tiberius, dating to the period of only nine days between the time when Maurice was declared Caesar and adopted the name Tiberius on 5 August, and 14 August when Tiberius II died. Hahn (MIBE) disagrees with Whitting’s interpretation of the legend, more logically reading the “Nb” as nobilissimus, “...a title connected with the Caesarship which Maurice had held for a week until his coronation as co-Augustus” on 13 August, although noting that it may have been used afterwards (p. 45). If not a joint issue fitting into this narrow time frame of nine days, the emission must date to the earliest days of Maurice’s reign as Augustus, seemingly before deciding to include “Maurice” in his official imperial name, and almost certainly before 31 August, when a new indiction began.