Extremely Rare Groš

CNG 108, Lot: 846. Estimate $500. Sold for $1400. This amount does not include the buyer’s fee.

BULGARIA, Second Empire. Mihail Asen III Šišman. 1323–1330. AR Groš (20mm, 1.76 g, 6h). Uncertain mint. Christ enthroned facing; x to inner right / Tsarina and Mihail Šišman standing facing, holding banner decorated with x between them. Raduchev & Zhekov 1.11.4 (R9); Youroukova & Penchev 61; D&D 8.1.3. Near EF, lightly toned. Extremely rare, only the second CNG has handled and the first since 2008 (for the other, see CNG 79, lot 1425 [hammer $2500]).

From the Iconodule Collection.

Mihail Asen III was the son of the despotēs Šišman of Vidin and a distant cousin of Todor Svetoslav and Georgi Terter II. Since the middle of the 13th century, Vidin had been effectively autonomous under ineffective Bulgarian overlordship, and the title of despotēs signified this. When Georgi Terter II died in 1323, Mihail Asen III was elected emperor of Bulgaria.

Although Mihail managed to force Andronikos III to retreat, the Byzantines took Plovdiv. Mihail was able to recover Bulgarian control over northern and northeastern Thrace in 1324. A subsequent peace treaty with the Byzantine Empire, which was to be concluded by Mihail’s marriage to Theodora Palaiologina, the sister of Andronikos III Palaiologos, who had previously been married to Todor Svetoslav of Bulgaria. To marry Theodora, Mihail divorced his first wife Anna (Neda), a sister of the Serbian King Stefan Uroš III Dečanski, a move that resulted in a worsening of relations with Serbia. Even the rival Byzantine emperors took sides, and for the next several years, a series of wars were waged against the Serbs and their Byzantine allies.

This type has caused some confusion since neither of Mihail’s two wives was named Irene. It is thought that that Theodora may have adopted the name, which means “peace,” as her marriage to Mihail was one of the conditions of the treaty reached between the Bulgarians and Byzantines. The taking of the name would serve as “a symbolic commemoration of the rapprochement that her marriage to Michael brought to the two warring lands” (D&D p. 129). See Dochev p. 254 and Raduchev & Zhekov p. 113, however, for a coin struck from a re-engraved reverse die, where part of the name of Anna is visible.