Sale: CNG 63, Lot: 1654. Estimate $500.  Closing Date: Wednesday, 21 May 2003.  Sold For $1400. This amount does not include the buyer’s fee.

LEO III. 717-741 AD. Æ Follis (0.59 gm). Ravenna mint. Struck 717-720 AD. Crowned facing bust, holding globus cruciger and akakia / Large M, ANO to left, uncertain above and right; Q/RAV. DOC -; MIB -; cf. Ravenna Museum 212 (Constans II); SB -. VF for type, struck on a quartered flan of an earlier coin. Very rare. ($500)

The only similar specimen is in the museum in Ravenna. Portrait style and flan put the present coin later than Constans II, and Leo III is the most likely candidate. There is only one later follis from Ravenna, a unique coin of Constantine V, struck before the city fell to the Lombards in 751.