Obol - Andrew III

Andrew III, the last Árpád king, spent much of his reign fighting off rival claimants backed by the papacy and the Angevins of Naples, who contested his legitimacy from the moment of his accession. Small silver fractions like this obol circulated under conditions of chronic political instability — the dynasty that had ruled Hungary since 1000 AD died with Andrew in 1301, after which the Angevin Charles Robert eventually prevailed. The EK and CAC references place this piece within a tightly catalogued but physically elusive series; survival rates for fractional silver of this weight are low simply because the coins were too small to hoard deliberately.