Skip to Content

Andronikos III Palaiologos, Copper, Assarion, Thessalonike, 1328-1341

 
 

Obverse

Half-length figure of St. Demetrios with spear and shield. T in right field.

Reverse

Andronikos III Palaiologos standing and holding two patriarchal crosses.

Obverse

Half-length figure of St. Demetrios with spear and shield. T in right field.

Reverse

Andronikos III Palaiologos standing and holding two patriarchal crosses.

Accession number BZC.2007.6.46
Catalogue ID as DOC 5.2: plate 51, no. 927
Ruler Andronikos III Palaiologos
Date of Reign 1328–1341
Metal Copper
Denomination Assarion
Mint Thessalonike
Date 13281341
Diameter 18.0 mm
Weight 1.1 g
Relation of Dies 4:00
Shape Flat
Undertype

Denier tournois of John II Orsini

Commentary

J. Shea accepts S. Bendall’s arguments (“An Early Fourteenth-Century Hoard of Thessalonican Trachea,” 263, 271–72; and “Palaeologan Notes,” 303) that the two coins cited together by Grierson in DOC 5:2 belong to different reigns: no. 927 to Andronikos III, and no. 928 to Andronikos II.

This coin is still slightly cup-shaped. Other examples of this type are almost flat, placing them at the end of the transition from coins struck on slightly cup-shaped flans to flat ones.

LPC 236, no. 6.

H. Longuet, “Une trouvaille de monnaies des Paléologues,” no. 34.

S. Bendall, “Longuet’s Salonica Hoard Re-Examined,” no. 17I (with note on undertype at p. 150).

J. Shea, “Longuet’s ‘Salonica Hoard’ and the Mint of Thessalonike in the Mid-Fourteenth Century,” 325, no. 47 (type P).

Acquisition History

From S. Bendall, 19 July 2007. From Longuet’s “Salonica Hoard.”