Sale: Triton VIII, Lot: 1448. Estimate $1000.  Closing Date: Monday, 10 January 2005.  Sold For $1700. This amount does not include the buyer’s fee.

CONSTANTINE IX, Monomachus. 1042-1055. AR Two-Thirds Miliaresion (2.08 gm, 6h). Constantinople mint. H RLAXEP NITICA, MHP QV across fields, facing bust of the Virgin orans, nimbate, wearing tunic and maphorion / - -- -QKER, Q, KWNCTAN TINW DEC POTH TW MONOMA -X,- in six lines. DOC III 8a; BN 8; SB 1835. VF, toned, light scratches. ($1000)

From the Malcolm W. Heckman Collection. Ex Triton I (2-3 December, 1997), lot 1804; Baldwin's 2 (5 October 1994), lot 151; Leu/Numismatica Ars Classica (26 May 1993), lot 258; Auctiones 12 (29-30 September, 1981), lot 707.

The fractional two-thirds miliaresion was first minted under Constantine IX and thereafter production of the denomination continued down to the time of the Alexian currency reform in 1092. Many of the surviving specimens are defective (usually pierced for use as jewelry or badly chipped and incomplete) but this example is of outstanding quality. The obverse features a bust of the Virgin orans and the accompanying inscription describes her as h Blacernitis[s]a. The depiction is thus of the icon in the Church of the Virgin at Blachernae, one of the most venerated religious images in the city. Grierson (Byzantine Coins, pg. 203) suggests that its appearance at this time may be related to the celebration of the 600th anniversary of this church which had been founded in the mid-5th century by the empress Pulcheria, sister of Theodosius II. The six-line inscription on the reverse gives the name and titles of ‘Constantinos Monomachos’, the epigraphic design on the silver coinage being a tradition that stretched back more than 300 years to the reign of Leo III.