★ Very rare and unusually well preserved ★

ISLAMIC, 'Abbasid Caliphate. temp. Al-Mansur, AH 136-158 / AD 754-775. Fals (Bronze, 19 mm, 2.71 g, 6 h), Samarqand, AH 144 = 761/2. Citing governor al-Ashʿath ibn Yahya, and al-Mahdi Muhammad, son and heir of al-Mansur, in the reverse margin. Within a dotted circle, ‘lā ilāha / illā Allāh / waḥdahū’ (‘There is no deity but Allah, the One’ in Arabic); in the margin, ‘ḍuriba bi Samarqand sana arbaʿ wa arbaʿīn wa miʾa’ (‘Struck in Samarqand in the year 144’ in Arabic). Rev. Within a dotted circle, ‘Muḥammad / rasūl / Allāh’ (‘Muhammad is the messenger of Allah’ in Arabic); Tamgha of Samarqand; in the margin, ‘amara bihī al-Ashʿath ibn Yaḥyā fī vilāyat al-Mahdī al-amīr Muḥammad ibn amīr al-muʾminīn’ (‘al-Ashʿath ibn Yahya ordered it under the authority of amir al-Mahdi Muhammad, son of the Commander of the Believers’ in Arabic). Album 334. Very rare and unusually well preserved. Some deposits, otherwise, about extremely fine.

From the collection of Dr. D. Löer, Leu Web Auction 26, 8-13 July 2023, 6118.