Catalog
See full images - free registration
Continue with Google - no registration!
or register with email
Why register? Just to keep bots out of our catalog. Your email stays private - we will never share it or send you anything uninvited. We guarantee you that!
1 Obolo
| Issuer | Commune of Asti |
|---|---|
| Year | 1422-1447 |
| Type | Log in to see details |
| Value | Log in to see details |
| Currency | Lira (1095-1553) |
| Composition | Log in to see details |
| Weight | Log in to see details |
| Diameter | Log in to see details |
| Thickness | Log in to see details |
| Shape | Log in to see details |
| Technique | Log in to see details |
| Orientation | Log in to see details |
| Engraver(s) | Log in to see details |
| In circulation to | Log in to see details |
| Reference(s) | Log in to see details |
| Obverse description | Log in to see details |
|---|---|
| Obverse script | Latin |
| Obverse lettering | Log in to see details |
| Reverse description | A cross pattée occupies the central field, with a pellet or small roundel placed in each of the four cantons formed by the arms of the cross. The design is rendered in the restrained, linear style typical of small billon issues of the Piedmontese communes. The encircling legend + MONETA · ASTENSIS identifies the issue as coinage of Asti, separated from the central device by an inner border. |
| Reverse script | Log in to see details |
| Reverse lettering | Log in to see details |
| Edge | Log in to see details |
| Mint | Log in to see details |
| Mintage | Log in to see details |
| Additional information |
Asti's communal coinage of the fifteenth century occupies an awkward political moment: the city had passed under Milanese Visconti control in 1342, yet continued issuing coins under its own communal name well into the following century, a arrangement that suited the Visconti's preference for local administrative facades. The obolo, fractional even by the standards of billon small change, would have handled the lowest-tier transactions in a market economy already shifting toward larger silver and the first stirrings of gold.
The MIR 54R designation flags this as a rare die variety within an already scarce type.