Æ29 - Gordian III ΜΗΤ ΚΟΛ ΕΔΕϹϹΗΝωΝ

Edessa occupied a uniquely precarious position in the 240s — a client kingdom only recently absorbed into the Roman provincial system, sitting directly on the contested frontier with Sasanian Persia. Gordian III's eastern campaign of 242–244, which ended with his death under disputed circumstances near Misiche, would have made coins struck in his name at Edessa simultaneously a declaration of Roman allegiance and a wager on an uncertain military outcome.

The city lost its status as a Roman colonia not long after this period, making the colonial titulature in the legend — ΜΗΤ ΚΟΛ ΕΔΕϹϹΗΝωΝ — a marker of a specifically bounded moment in the city's administrative history.