Sale: CNG 66, Lot: 1960. Estimate $300.  Closing Date: Wednesday, 19 May 2004.  Sold For $325. This amount does not include the buyer’s fee.

RUSSIA. Principality of Tmutarakan. 11th century. Billon "Miliaresion" (1.51 gm). Imitating the Byzantine miliaresion of Basil II and Constantine VIII (976-1025 AD; cf. SB 1810). Cross-crosslet with central x and crescent on shaft, flanked by crude crowned busts / Legend reduced to series of dashes. Golenko 5. VF for type, dark green patina. ($300)

These crude imitations of Byzantine silver coins circulated on the Taman penninsula on the Black Sea coast of modern day Ukraine. They were contemporary with the silver srebrenniki struck in Kievian Rus. The earliest imitations, probably struck during or immediately after the striking of the prototype, were of reasonably good silver. By the middle of the 11th century, later derived copies become highly debased, in this case little more than bronze with perhaps a trace of silver.