321, Lot: 421. Estimate $100. Sold for $380. This amount does not include the buyer’s fee.

SYRIA, Decapolis. Philadelphia. Pseudo-autonomous issue. Æ (15mm, 2.60 g, 12h). Dated CY 141? (AD 78/9?). Helmeted bust of Athena / ЄT/OVC/ RMV (R retrograde) in three lines within wreath. Spijkerman 4; Rosenberger 5; Sofaer 1; RPC II 2108. VF, earthen green paitna. A nice example of this rare and enigmatic issue.

Most specimens have a clearer date of AMV, but here the engraver has rendered the A as a retrograde R. AMV would be the equivalent of year 441, an impossibility if counting in civic years. Rosenberger, RPC, and Soffaer all take the date to be 141, an interpretation that is not entirely convincing.