Obol - Ptolemy IV Philopator

Ptolemy IV inherited a kingdom in strong fiscal shape but ran it into the ground through court indulgence and disengagement from administration — his reign is better remembered for the catastrophic near-loss at Raphia in 217 BC than for any monetary policy. The bronze coinage of his reign was issued under a system that deliberately overvalued bronze against silver, a closed-currency mechanism the Ptolemies had maintained since the third century to keep foreign coin out of Egypt and control internal trade.

The Svoronos 1170 attribution places this piece within a well-documented sequential die study, though Lorber's later work refined the chronology considerably.