Apparently, the "King-Priest" (lit. the
King, the Priest) variety (H470v,
TJC K17) of
Jannaeus, which is a variety of the regular star-anchor
type, is
rare, and
comes from a single die (
TJC).
The fact that the coin says "King-Priest" probably was to rub it in the faces of the Pharisees, because one of the main reasons the Rabbis didn't like the
Maccabees and their
Hasmonean descendants was because they took both the priestly and royal crown.
I think this variety may be not a single die variety, but rather, and official issue.
I have found that
inscription is very common for this
style of coin, with the thin, rounded
anchor and
star made out of circles attached to thin ray lines. I have found many coins of this
type, but usually the
inscription was missing. In fact, I found more "King-Priest" inscriptions on coins of this
type then the regular
inscription (The
king Yehonatan)
Attached are 3 King-Priest
types (the first looks like it might possibly say "the
king and priest", "HaMelek VeHakohen"?), and I have rotated the images so the script reads "HMLK HKHN" (המלר הכהן) from bottom right around. None of these coins share the same
reverse die. I couldn't find any of these coins that share the same die, suggesting a large mintage of this
type.
Could this be possible?