Sale: Triton VI, Lot: 1199. Estimate $1000.  Closing Date: Monday, 13 January 2003.  Sold For $1600. This amount does not include the buyer’s fee.

PHOCAS. 602-610 AD. AV Solidus (4.45 gm). Thessalonica (?) mint. Struck 602/3 AD. DM N FOCA E PERP AVG, crowned, draped, and cuirassed bust facing, crown surmounted by a cross, with pendilia / VICTORI-A AVGGH, angel standing facing, holding long staff surmounted by a Christogram and globus cruciger; CONOB. DOC II -; Bendall, New, 1; MIB II 3; BN -; SB 617A. Superb EF, on an oversized flan. Rare. ($1000) 

Bendall placed this exceptional issue at Thessalonica based upon its superior style, a parallel early portrait issue in copper, and the legend-spelling with the break between the A and E. Hahn considers this issue to be Sicilian (cf. NumCirc, December 1979, pp. 553-4). Other authorities still place this coin at Constantinople. A comparable piece in the Nelson Bunker Hunt Collection (Sotheby's, 5-6 December, 1990), lot 207, sold for $1400