For years I looked for an example. I
had only seen one and that was from a fellow collector on
Forum Ancient Coins, I helped him attribute it.
After that I never saw another Until……..
A
collection of coins from Simon
Bendall came to market, I bid on this coin and lost and very much regretted it. Well in this case opportunity struck twice and the coin came back to market, I acquired it and received it today.
Andronicus I SBCV-1988
DOC 7
2.57gm
20mm
From the
collection of Simon
Bendall.
I
had considered my
collection complete without this coin but after making the purchase I did some more homework regarding the coin.
Now the original
attribution by Michael
Hendy was this was a coin made during the siege of
Thessalonica in the month of August 1185 AD, the normal issue from this
mint was a coin depicting the Virgin (
Type A, SBCV-1987) and this
rare coin was considered
type B ( SBCV-1988). The tie in is two of these coins were found at the
Athens and none in
Corinth excavations. One of the 2 coins found was
overstruck over
type A. I have not seen this
overstruck coin and it was not pictured but it was from
work “The
Athenian Agora” written by Margaret
Thompson in the 1954. That gave them the placement of what was first.
Jump ahead and the original owner of this coin, Simon
Bendall, he wrote another book in 2015, “The coinage of the
Empire of Trebizond” . In that book he believes the coin should have attributed to Andronicus Gidon ( 1222-1235 ) a grandson of
Andronicus I. Mr.
Bendall’s argument on it is that the Lys
had first appeared on
Byzantine coinage after 1204 AD and two other of Andronicus Gidons coins
had St George where
Andronicus I did not have him on any and Andronicus did not use full family name Comnenus on
his coinage
I thought this very convincing until I remembered a sold an
Andronicus I Type A tetartera SBCV- 1987 with a full family name, I sold that example here on
Forum and it was very notable because it included the full
legend. AN∆PONIKOC ∆ECΠOTHC.
The second
part is not very strong argument, St George was a waring Saint and commonly used by Andronicus predecessor Manual Comnenus and the Lys
had been used in early
Christian art to depict the Holy Trinity as well as other cultures for different reasons.
So here is the final irony, the coin came with Simon Bendall notes on a piece of small cut up paper, he had never got around to reattributing the coin and he left it at Andronicus I DOC VII
This was my only missing coin from my
collection of 12th century tetartera
Alexius I to
Alexius III.
So with this it is now complete and I could not think of a better coin to complete it with, nice example, excellent Provenance and a touch of mystery to boot.
