1 Drachm - Ardashir I

Ardashir I struck these early drachms immediately after defeating the last Parthian king, Artabanus IV, at the Battle of Hormozdgan in 224 AD — effectively ending four centuries of Arsacid rule in a single engagement. The Sasanian coinage program that followed was a deliberate ideological break: where Parthian issues had grown increasingly debased and stylistically degraded, Ardashir's silver returned to a consistent standard and introduced a new fire altar reverse type that would anchor Persian royal coinage for the next four hundred years.

The Göbl II/2/2 classification places this among the earliest die pairings of the reign, before the portrait convention fully stabilized.