Borporan Kingdom. Rhescuporis V (314/5-341/2 or 342/3 AD).

Borporan Kingdom. Rhescuporis V (314/5-341/2 or 342/3 AD); ςIX=616 BE=AD 319/320, AE 18.5 Stater, 7.70g. MacDonald-675/6. Obv. ΒΑΣΙΛΕΩΣ ΡΗΣΚΟΥΠΟΡΙC. Diademed bust of Rhescuporis V right. Rx. Laureate bust of Roman emperor right; star in right field, date ςΙX (616 BE) below; dotted border. Note: During the concurrent rule of Rhadamsadius (309/10–322/3 AD) and Rhescuporis V (314–342/3 AD), both rulers issued bronze staters in several overlapping years. In 616 BE (AD 319/20) specifically, each king struck a stater — issues that are uncommon and remarkably similar in size, style, and distribution.

The primary differences between these staters lie in slight variations in the legends, produced at a time when engraving standards had already deteriorated significantly. Legends are frequently crude, dates often barely legible, and reversed letters are not uncommon — a clear departure from the cleaner inscriptions of earlier Bosporan issues. These factors make precise attribution especially difficult, and coins of this type from these years are therefore rare.

Extremely rare. This specimen is listed in MacDonald, An Introduction to the History and Coinage of the Kingdom of the Bosporus (CNS), no. 675/6, but no image is published, and a detailed search of CoinArchives and related repositories has yielded no known example. The star in the reverse right field is especially notable: while this feature appears on bronze two-denarii types of Rhescuporis IV (cf. MacDonald 626), it is never seen on staters of that king, and is otherwise unknown on staters of Rhescuporis V from this year (616 BE). Its presence here marks this coin as a published but virtually unknown stater of Rhescuporis V from this date — a variant attested in text but, to date, unillustrated, and possibly only documented in obscure Black Sea numismatic literature (e.g., Anokhin).

Ex coll. of Prof. David MacDonald, 2025.. EF