CNG 100, Lot: 243. Estimate $1500. Sold for $8500. This amount does not include the buyer’s fee.

KINGS of BOSPORUS. Rhescuporis I, with Vespasian and Titus as Caesar. AD 68/9-92/3. AV Stater (19mm, 7.86 g, 12h). Dated Bosporan Era 369 (AD 72/3). Laureate head of Vespasian right / Bare head of Titus right; monogram to left, ΘΞΤ (date) below. Frolova p. 94, 1 = Bertier, Monetach 84’ (note); Anokhin 356 = Giel, Novie 69; MacDonald 340 (this coin cited and illustrated); RPC I 453 (citing only the Frolova and Anokhin specimens). VF, minor ghosting on the obverse. Extremely rare, and possibly the only known example.

From the collection of Dr. Lawrence A. Adams. Ex V. Adda Collection (Christie’s, 8 October 1985), lot 318, for a hammer of £605. Possibly ex Grand Duke George Mikhailovich Collection.

Bertier’s article unfortunately does not plate an image for coin 84’—which he lists as being from Mikhailovich’s collection—and Frolova, citing only the Bertier specimen, accordingly has no image for this type and date. Similarly, an article published by Christian Christianovich Giel in Записки Русского археологического общества, entitled “Новые приобретения моего собрания,” mentions an example of this type and date, weighing 7.88 g (the same as the coin cited by Bertier), and also without an image. It is this latter specimen that Anokhin cites, without any mention of the former. Given the extreme rarity of the type and date, the proximity of the two collectors (Giel in 1892 and Mikhailovich in 1911), and the same recorded weight of the two specimens, it is this cataloger’s opinion that the two citations may, in fact, be to the same coin, linking to this present coin, the minor difference in weight being explained by the slight imprecision of the tools of late 19th/early 20th century.