1 Obolo

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.