255, Lot: 396. Estimate $100. Sold for $190. This amount does not include the buyer’s fee.

BULGARIA, Second Empire. Georgi Terter I. 1280–1292. Æ Trachy (25mm, 1.70 g, 6h). Facing bust of Christ Pantokrator set on throne back; IC [XC] across field / Emperors standing facing, holding cross between them. Raduchev & Zhekov Type 1.7.1; Youroukova & Penchev 51. Near VF, brown-green patina, flan crack.

While the actual birth date and parentage of Georgi Terter I, who ruled as tsar of Bulgaria from 1280 to 1292, are uncertain, it is certain that he had at least one brother, Aldimir (Eltimir), who married the sister of the young tsar Ivan II and was appointed despotēs in 1298 in return for protection against his uncles as well as the advancing Mongols under Chaka. Prior to his accession, Georgi Terter I allied himself with Ivan Asen III, which included sending his son Theodore Svetoslav to Constantinople as a hostage, and marrying the sister of Ivan Asen III. In return, Georgi Terter I was appointed despotēs. When Ivan III Asen fled the country in 1280, Georgi Terter I seized the throne. His first move was to try to ally himself with Carlo I d'Angiò and Stefan Dragutin to remove Michael VIII Palaeologus and restore the Latin kingdom. When this move failed and the Mongols of the Golden Horde under Nogai Khan began ravaging Bulgaria, Georgi Terter I in 1284 engaged his daughter Anna to Stefan Uroš II Milutin. In addition, he recovered his son Theodore Svetoslav from Constantinople and appointed him as co-tsar. A second Mongol invasion in 1285, however, forced him to send his son this time as a hostage (along with a daughter) to Nogai Khan. While there, the young girl married Nogai's son Chaka. Possibly prompted by the Mongols, in 1292, Georgi Terter I fled to Constantinople. Fearing a possible Mongol reprisal, the Byzantines hesitated receiving him at court; instead, Georgi Terter I remained for a while in Adrianople, before he was finally transferred east. In 1301, his son Theodore Svetoslav, now tsar, recovered his father from the Byzantines and confined him to a comfortable exile, until Georgi Terter I’s death in 1308/9.