Obol - Shapur II

Shapur II holds the singular distinction of having been crowned king before birth — the Sasanian nobles, certain the queen carried a male heir, placed the diadem on her womb. He went on to reign for seventy years, longer than any other Sasanian monarch, and spent much of it in grinding conflict with Rome and the eastern Kushano-Sasanian territories. These obols, the smallest silver denominations of his coinage, circulated across an empire perpetually on a war footing. The Göbl 1b reverse die pairing is among the earliest attributable to his reign.