Umayyad Caliphate, Silver coinage. AR Dirham (26.6mm, 2.88 g, 9h). Dard mint. Dated AH 93 (AD 711/2). Near EF, some peripheral hornsilver.

Islamic Auction 7 - Session One
Lot: 53. Estimated: $ 3 000

Umayyad Silver and Bronze, Silver

Sold For $ 3 250. This amount does not include the buyer’s fee.

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Umayyad Caliphate, Silver coinage. AR Dirham (26.6mm, 2.88 g, 9h). Dard mint. Dated AH 93 (AD 711/2). Klat 303; Al-‘Ajlan p.172, no. 20; ICV 263. Near EF, some peripheral hornsilver. Very rare.

‘Dard’ was once thought to be a blundered version of the well-known mint-name Darabjird. In Arabic, bi-Darabjird, ‘at Darabjird’, would be written with two visually similar triplets of joined consonants before the final d, and it was suspected that the engraver might have omitted the second in error. But in 2008 an Umayyad dirham dated AH 79 came to light on which the mint-name was unambiguously written as ‘Dard’ (Baldwin’s Islamic Auction 14, lot 25), which supports the view that ‘Dard’ represents a different locality, yet to be identified. Further support for this view comes from the fact that that all surviving dirhams of Dard dated AH 93 appear to have two pellets below fi in the obverse mint/date legend; these are not found on dirhams from Darabjird, although similar pellets are known on other Umayyad dirhams, including issues of Marw struck in AH 99, 100 and 101.

Closing Date and Time: at 14:17:20 ET.