Sale: Triton IX, Lot: 1467. Estimate $2000.  Closing Date: Monday, 9 January 2006.  Sold For $4250. This amount does not include the buyer’s fee.

HADRIAN, with SABINA. 117-138 AD. AR Cistophoric Tetradrachm (10.90 g, 1h). Unattributed mint. Struck after 128 AD. HADRIANVS AVGVSTVS P P COS III, bare headed and draped bust of Hadrian right / SABINA AVGVSTA. draped bust of Sabina right, hair drawn up in elaborate plaiting. Leo Benz Collection (Lanz 94, 22 November 1999), lot 531 = Lanz 30 (26 November 1984), lot 548 (same dies); cf. CNG 70 (21 September 2005), lot 978 (Nicomedia mint); otherwise unpublished. VF, areas of minor roughness on obverse, die shift and light cleaning marks on reverse. Extremely rare, the third known. ($2000)

Only two cistophori with the busts of Hadrian and Sabina are published (cited above). Whereas the CNG 70 specimen was struck at Nicomedia, the Benz and the present coins, both of which share the same dies, stylistically belong to Metcalf's Unattributed Mint (Cistophori, pl. 27, 393-404). The presence of Sabina's imperial title firmly date the coins to after 128 AD, the year in which she was made Augusta.