Sale: Triton VIII, Lot: 1499. Estimate $500.  Closing Date: Monday, 10 January 2005.  Sold For $775. This amount does not include the buyer’s fee.

CAMBODIA. Norodom I. 1859-1904. AV Restrike 50 Centimes (3.18 gm, 6h). C. Wurden, engraver. Dated 1860. NORODOM I ROI DU CAMBODGE, 1860, bare head left; C. WURDEN beneath head / Cambodian legend, royal coat-of-arms. Cf. Freidberg 5; f. KM Pn7. EF, coppery toning, struck from rusty dies. ($500)

The first western style machine-struck coinage for the kingdom of Cambodia was prepared in 1864, a year after France forced a protectorate on Norodom I. Dies were executed by Faconnet in Paris, but few examples were coined. In 1875 new sets of dies were engraved by Wurden, and circulating coinage was distributed from the mint at Phnom Penh. Both issues were dated 1860, the year of Norodom's coronation. The most commonly encountered types have the reverse legends in Cambodian and French, while scarcer varieties have Cambodian legends only. In 1899 the Wurden dies, heavily rusted after years of storage in a tropical climate, were found and re-strikes were made in the original metals as well as in gold. New pattern dies were created in 1902, but were never used to any great degree.