TYRE SILVER SHEKEL – 116/15 BC ISSUE WITH XXII INSCRIBED ON EDGE – XF STAR NGC GRADED GREEK PHOENICIA BIBLICAL COIN (Inv. 20389)

$7,850.00

20389. PHOENICIA. TYRE.
Silver Shekel, 14.08 g, 28 mm. Issue dated Tyre year 11 (116/115 BC).
Obv. Laureate head of Melkart right. Rev. ΤΥΡΟΥ ΙΕΡΑΣ ΚΑΙ ΑΣΥΛΟΥ, eagle standing left on prow, AI (date) above club in left field, HAP monogram in right field, Phoenician letter B between legs.
DCA Tyre Supplement Release 2, 28.
Published: Vilmar Numismatics FLP II, Winter 2021, no. 75 = Ex Delphi International.
NGC XF STAR, Strike 5/5, Surface 4/5, “edge engraved: XXII”.

This fascinating coin bears the Latin number XXII carefully engraved on the edge. While there is no way to determine exactly when this number was added to the edge, it suggests that a former owner purposely marked the coin in this way. It may well have been a collector who was trying to assemble the Biblical “30 pieces of silver” and this specimen was their number 22. There is at least one other such piece documented from the CNG Triton XXV sale (lot 337), a shekel from Tyre year 9 that bears the number 24 (XXIV).