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<p>[QUOTE=&quot;Parthicus, post: 3078905, member: 81887&quot;]Here&#039;s another of my recent auction wins:</p><p>[ATTACH=full]774940[/ATTACH] </p><p>Parthian Kingdom, Persis mint.&nbsp; AR diobol (13 mm, 1.35 g).&nbsp; Pakoros II (c. 78-120 AD).&nbsp; Obverse: Bust of king left.&nbsp; Reverse: Seated archer surrounded by four-line blundered pseudo-Greek legend, degraded Ekbatana mintmark.&nbsp; Sellwood, &quot;New Parthian Coin Types&quot; Numismatic Chronicle 1989 Type 8, Shore 402-3, Sunrise 436.&nbsp; This coin: Triskeles Sale 23, lot 256; ex David Sellwood collection.</p><p><br /></p><p>(Obligatory note on Parthian king numbering: Pakoros II is called Pakoros I in some recent sources, based on giving the old &quot;Pakoros I&quot; a disqualification as not counting as a true Parthian King [the story is long and complicated].&nbsp; Also, the &quot;Artabanos III&quot; briefly mentioned below is now considered &quot;Artabanos V&quot;.&nbsp; Please don&#039;t ask me to explain why.)</p><p><br /></p><p>Pakoros II was the son of the Parthian king Vonones II (51 AD) and a Greek concubine.&nbsp; When Vonones died, his older son Vologases I became the king of Parthia, while Pakoros was sent to serve as the sub-king of Atropatene (roughly covering what is now Azerbaijan).&nbsp; When Vologases I died in 78 AD, his son Vologases II was named as his successor.&nbsp; Pakoros raised a rebellion against his nephew and was successful by the following year.&nbsp; Not much is known about the reign of Pakoros II, but he did face several challengers for the throne, including Vologases II and Artabanos III (c. 80-90 AD).&nbsp; The date of Pakoros II&#039;s death is uncertain.&nbsp; Most sources have put the end date for his reign at 105 AD, but in the catalog of the Sunrise collection G.R.F. Assar convincingly argues that Pakoros II must have reigned until at least 110/111 AD, and may have retained some territory in Iran until as late as 120 AD.&nbsp; About the only other notable fact of Pakoros II&#039;s reign is that he sent an embassy to China in about 101 AD.</p><p><br /></p><p>The story behind this coin is interesting.&nbsp; The Parthians never issued very much fractional silver, and for a long time it was thought that they completely stopped during the reign of Orodes II (57-38 BC).&nbsp; However, around 1984 a hoard of Persis silver coins entered the market which included some previously unknown fractional silvers with typical Parthian-style reverses.&nbsp; David Sellwood catalogued these coins in a 1989 article in the Numismatic Chronicle (available free on JSTOR) and attributed various diobol subtypes to Vologases I, Vologases II, Pakoros II, and Artabanos III.&nbsp; The size (fractional silver, after a gap of over a century from the last issue by the main Parthian mints), artistic style, association with known Persis types, and find spot (the hoard was supposedly found near Shiraz, in Fars Province [Persis]) all point to these coins being issued in Persis, despite the Ekbatana mintmark found on the reverse.&nbsp; Presumably the celators copied the reverse type from Parthian drachms, which were at that point all bearing the Ekbatana mintmark, and either didn&#039;t know or didn&#039;t care that the thing under the archer&#039;s bow was supposed to be a mintmark.&nbsp; The reason for this issue of Parthian-style coinage, at roughly the same time as the main Persis series, remains mysterious.</p><p><br /></p><p>I won this coin in the latest Triskeles auction for $90 on an estimate of $100, which is a very low price for this type.&nbsp; The Triskeles auction notes that this is from the David Sellwood collection, although this is definitely not the same specimen that appears in the plate of his 1989 article.&nbsp; Even without the provenance, it is still a pleasant and scarce coin.&nbsp; Post your related coins here.[/QUOTE]</p><p><br /></p>

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