Sale: CNG 70, Lot: 957. Estimate $500.  Closing Date: Wednesday, 21 September 2005.  Sold For $360. This amount does not include the buyer’s fee.

TRAJAN. 98-117 AD. Æ Quadrans (3.31 g, 6h). Dardanian mines. Struck 98-102 AD. Laureate head right, slight drapery on left shoulder / DARDANICI, Woman (Pax?) standing left, holding branch and gathering up drapery. RIC II 704 var. (no drapery); BMCRE 1106 note; Cohen 138. Good VF, dark green patina. Rare. ($500)

Under Trajan and Hadrian several series of bronze quadrantes were struck in the names of the imperial mines in Noricum, Dalmatia, Pannonia, and Moesia (Dardania). These operations supplied metal for the mint at Rome, and perhaps were the sites of workshops to produce coinage for local circulation or as donatives. Others theorize that these pieces were struck at Rome itself, and served some unidentified function, much as the contemporary 'nome' coinage struck at Alexandria in Egypt. Whatever the circumstances, these pieces saw limited use, and except for one rare type struck by Marcus Aurelius, were not issued during any other period.