65, Lot: 72. Estimate $100. Sold for $62. This amount does not include the buyer’s fee.

HADRIAN. 117-138 AD. Æ Quadrans (13mm, 1.49 gm). Dardanian mines issue. Helmeted and draped bust of Roma right / DARDA-NICI, Woman standing left, holding grain ears and lifting hem of skirt. RIC II 1016 (Hadrian); Simic and Vasic, "La Monnaie des Mines Romaines de L'Illyrie," RN 1977, 8; Cohen 1514. VF, black patina. Very Rare. 

Under Hadrian, several quadrantes types were struck on behalf of the imperial mines in Noricum, Dalmatia, Pannonia, and Moesia (Dardania). These operations supplied metal for the Roman mint, and perhaps were the sites of workshops to produce local coinage or donatives. Some theorize that these pieces were struck at Rome itself, and served some unidentified function, much as the contemporary "nome" coinage struck at Alexandria in Egypt. Whatever the circumstances, these pieces saw limited use, and, except for a rare type struck by Marcus Aurelius, were not issued at any other period.