149, Lot: 397. Estimate $100. Sold for $107. This amount does not include the buyer’s fee.

BULGARIA. Alexios and John Asen. Circa 1356-1366. Æ Trachy (21mm, 1.70 g). The Virgin Mary, orans, standing between two short columns topped by stars / Two crowned figures standing facing, holding sceptres; clouds above, three stars between. Bendall, “The Diokitirion Square Trachion Reconsidered”, in Nomismatika Xronika 21, pp. 107-110. Near VF, green patina.

Alexios and John Asen were scions of the Bulgarian royal house, who held a section of the Thracian coast as an independent fief during the turbulent reign of the Byzantine emperor John V. Site finds indicate these coins were struck in that area, and are not imperial Byzantine issues.