Another one
Basil II miliaresion Class I was found.
Recently, another instance of the
rare Basil I milaresion Class I was discovered (
DOC IIIb 16;
Sear 1808).
Only several such coins were known. First coin is stored in the
Dumbarton Oaks Collection (see on plate below, #1), the second is in a private
collection in
Athens (according to P.
Grierson), the third has recently been sold twice through well-known online
auctions (see on plate below, #2). There may be others, but they have not been published.
So, a new coin, discovered recently (see on plate below, #3), is in very
poor condition. The coin was severely burned, the edge was broken off, as I think, during the finding, 'cos the silver became is extremely fragile. Two holes for a patch on clothes or something like that were roughly punched.
According to Savoca information, only one example in
CoinArchives and possibly only three or four known. Professor
Grierson suggests that this
Miliaresion was a transitional issue struck for only a few weeks in 977 shortly after Basil and Constantine's accession (P.
Grierson, "The Gold and Silver Coinage of
Basil II,"
ANSMN 13 (1967), pl. XXXIX, I).
Of course, it's easiest to consider this
type as a donative, minted in small quantities for distribution among the guests at a ceremony.
But how then to explain the fact that all three coins presented below were minted from three different pairs of dies, which indicates a rather large issue of these
type. What then is their extreme
rarity connected with?
