Sale: Triton VII, Lot: 1077. Estimate $300.  Closing Date: Monday, 12 January 2004.  Sold For $725. This amount does not include the buyer’s fee.

JUSTINIAN I. 527-565 AD. AV Solidus (4.49 gm). Constantinople mint. Struck 545-565 AD. DN IVSTINI ANVS PP AVI, helmeted and cuirassed facing bust, holding globus cruciger and shield / VICTORI A AVGGG, Victory standing facing, holding long staff surmounted by a Christogram and globus cruciger; star to right, IB/CONOB. DOC I 278 (Carthage); MIB I 73 (this coin); Monte Judica 54=Berk 45 (this coin); SB 140. Near EF. ($300)

From the Glenn Woods Collection. Ex Sotheby's (2 November 1998), lot 74; Monte Judica (Sicily) Hoard.

A curious coin, clearly of Constantinopolitan fabric, but with an officina number (12) higher than any other numbered workshop from that mint. Bellinger in DOC I attributed the type to Carthage, with IB being an indictional year indicator; he noted that Grierson dissented from this opinion. One feature of this coin is that the officina number has been re-cut, which also appears to be the case with the DOC specimen. If IB represents neither a regular workshop nor an indictional year, it may indicate a die sent out from Constantinople and altered for use at a provincial mint, temporarily assigned the number 12. This would undoubtedly be related to Justinian's campaigns of reconquest in the 540s and 550s AD.