Overstruck on a TR P XXXVIII As of Tiberius

348, Lot: 688. Estimate $100. Sold for $450. This amount does not include the buyer’s fee.

Theodosius III of Adramytium. 715-717. Æ Follis (28mm, 10.48 g, 11h). Syracuse mint. [Crowned] bust facing, wearing loros / Large M; SCL. Cf. DOC 8; cf. Anastasi 389; cf. MIB 15; cf. SB 1495 (all refs for for type). Host Coin Fair, c/m: Fine, rough. Overstruck on a last year Rome mint as of Tiberius (RIC I 65) with traces of a possible previous overstrike. Rare.

The obverse type, with the bust wearing a loros, is only known on Syracusan mint folles of Theodosius III, thus placing this coin as an issue of that emperor. Given that the undertype, a bronnze issue of the first century AD emperor Tiberius, dated to the last year of his reign, is in a relatively high grade for such an old issue, suggests that found hoards of old coins, such as the one that included this Roman as, were repurposed to strike these Syracusan folles of Theodosius and his predecessors.