Sale: Triton IX, Lot: 1235. Estimate $500.  Closing Date: Monday, 9 January 2006.  Sold For $400. This amount does not include the buyer’s fee.

[Medieval] SASANIAN KINGS. Khosrau II. 591-628 AD. AR Drachm (3.93 g, 2h). BBA (Court) mint. Dated RY 21 (611 AD). "Khosrau, the king of kings, may (he) strengthen (or prosper)" in Pahlavi (partially degraded), crowned bust right, ribbon over right shoulder; crescent and ribbon over left, stars flanking crown; three pellets on neck, monogram to left / Fire altar with attendants and ribbon, star and crescent flanking flames, regnal year to left, mint signature to right. Cf. Göbl II/2; Paruck 453 var. (mint); cf. Alram 915; MACW -; cf. De Morgan p. 726, 215-8. VF, toned. ($500)

Our coin is a stylistic enigma. Göbl assigned this obverse type with its high cap to RY 1-10, and the reverse, with the attendants wearing peaked caps, to the same period. Beginning in RY 11 a new style appears: a heavier portrait with a low cap on the obverse and attendants wearing low, crescent-shaped, caps on the reverse. Thus, the presence of the earlier type on a coin clearly dated long after the later had become canonical appears inexplicable. This is further complicated by the fact that the coin was not struck at some provincial mint, where the reuse of earlier dies was not unusual, but at the court mint. There, older dies should have been replaced by those in the newer style. As there is no evidence of die rust, our coin was not struck from reused old dies. At the same time, this mint's close association with the court suggests a closer administrative control of its operations. As the later style of Khosrau's drachms had become "canonical" by RY 21, the lapse to an earlier stylistic type seems quite out of place, suggesting some as yet-unknown occurrence at that mint.