120 / 194
Magnificent Quality Bar Kokhba Silver Sela
296
Judaea, Bar Kokhba Revolt. Silver Sela (14.15 g), 132-135 CE. Undated, attributed to year 3 (134/5 CE).
‘Simon’ (Paleo-Hebrew), tetrastyle façade of the Temple of Jerusalem; show bread table or Ark of the
Covenant in chest form with semicircular lid and short legs, seen from a narrow side; above façade, star.
Rev. ‘For the freedom of Jerusalem’ (Paleo-Hebrew), lulav with etrog at left. Hendin 1411; Mildenberg
82.14 (O12/R64; this coin); TJC 267.
The Mildenberg plate coin!
A magnificent coin of special beauty! Boldly
struck and attractively toned. Removed from an NGC slab where graded MS;
Strike: 4/5, Surface: 4/5.
$6,000
From the Dr. Patrick Tan Collection
Ex Leu 28 (5 May 1981), lot 294.
The undated sela’im were struck in the third and final year (134/5 CE) of the Bar Kokhba war, and although the types of
the Temple and the lulav and etrog are continued, the coins are no longer dated “year 1” or “year 2 of the redemption of
Israel” but instead carry the slogan “for the freedom of Jerusalem” on the reverse. The name of the holy city of Jerusa-
lem no longer appears around the Temple (perhaps suggesting it was now out of reach) and is replaced by Bar Kokhba’s
first name Simon. The messianic vision was being shattered, and the coins convey this message in their own cryptic way.