Sale: CNG 63, Lot: 1759. Estimate $3000.  Closing Date: Wednesday, 21 May 2003.  Sold For $4200. This amount does not include the buyer’s fee.

CRUSADERS. Counts of Tripoli. Pons. 1112-1137. Billon Denier (0.83 gm). +TRI•:•PO•:•LIS, cross potent / +TRIPOLIS CIVI, •T•A•S around central pellet. Sabine, "Coinage of the County of Tripolis", NumChron 1980, 4; Metcalf Crusades -; CCS 2 (all referring to the same specimen in Paris). Toned, good VF, some encrustation. Apparently the second known example. ($3000)

The first count of Tripoli, Bertram (1109-1112), struck an extremely rare series of deniers, but no coins are known in the name of his son Pons. It is believed this previously unique anonymous denier is an issue of Pons, with the PO of TRIPOLIS set off by quatrefoils to serve as an identification mark. This second known example is from unrecorded dies.

The record of Pons' fifteen year rule is one of continuous warfare, with both Muslims and fellow Franks, until his death in battle near Mt. Lebanon. The unsettled events of this period may have left Pons the opportunity to produce only a brief experimental coinage at the start of his reign.