308, Lot: 196. Estimate $200. Sold for $280. This amount does not include the buyer’s fee.

JUDAEA, Bar Kochba Revolt. 132-135 CE. Æ (24mm, 10.36 g, 6h). Dated year 1 (132/3 CE). Grape leaf on vine / Palm tree with two bunches of dates; two countermarks applied to host coin visible: galley and X, each within rectangular incuse. Mildenberg 45 (O2/R10); Meshorer 222; Hendin 1378; for c/m’s on host coin: Howgego 410b and 734. Good Fine, green surfaces. Overstruck on an uncertain issue with two countermarks of the Legio X Fretensis visible.

Such countermarks visible on some Bar Kochba coins can have the appearance of having been placed over the types minted during the revolt and have in the past been interpreted as such. The theory, of course, rests on the untenable assumption that the Romans re–authorized the coinage of the revolt. What we have here is a countermarked host coin, the countermark themselves being partially preserved on account of the depth of the stamps.