Sale: Triton VI, Lot: 1277. Estimate $20000.  Closing Date: Monday, 13 January 2003.  Sold For $15000. This amount does not include the buyer’s fee.

ITALY, Spanish Kings of Naples. Alfonso I of Aragon. 1442-1458. AV Alfonsino or Ducatone (5.28 gm). Uncertain mint, magistrate Jacopo Baboccio da Piperno. +ALFONSVS D G R ARAGON V S C V FA, arms of the kings of Aragon; Jerusalem cross in 2nd and 3rd quarters / +DNS M ADIVTOR ET EGO DESP IN M, armored king on horseback charging right; P in left field. CNI XVIII pg. 273, 4 var. (mintmaster’s initials); Pannuti 1a var. (same); Crusafont 421/3 var. (same). EF, slightly weak strike. Unique and unpublished. (See color enlargement on plate 19.) ($20,000) 

According to Sambon (“Incisori dei coni della moneta napoletana”, RIN 1893), the Alfonsono d’oro was initially struck at Gaeta in 1437-1442 and later at the Mint of Naples. Sambon believed that the siglum B belonged to the mint of Gaeta as there was no mint master with the surname B recorded for Naples, while S was attributed to the Naples mint master Francesco Senior. The initial M (CNI vol. 20, 5) seems to have been unknown to Sambon, and the following mint masters have been subsequently recorded as working at the Naples mint for Alfonso: Jacopo Baboccio da Piperno, Francesco Senior, and Salvatore Miroballis. The initials of these three names indicate that sigla B, M, and S belong to the Naples mint, leaving P still uncertain. Alfonsini d’oro without sigla may belong to the mint of Gaeta, but otherwise they are not distinguishable from the issues of the Naples mint. A possible explanation for the sigla P is that the coin was struck during the reign of Alfonso's son Ferdinand I (1458-1494) under whose reign the sigla is attested in 1461 for the mint master Salvatore D'Alponte (cf. Pannuti 21).