Obv. a cross enclosed in a circle on a square inscribed in Arabic: Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, one godhead alone’; similarly outside the square: ‘His is the glory for ever and ever. Amen, amen’.
Rev. a square inscribed in Arabic: ‘One God alone, one faith alone, one baptism alone’; outside the square in Arabic: ‘Struck in Acre in the year one thousand two hundred, one and fifty from the incarnation of Messiah’.
Silver, 2.75 g, 22.1 mm. Metcalf 228 (scarce). Near Extremely Fine. No damages, minor areas of weakness.
A rare coin.
In the first half of the 13th century,
in Acre and Tripoli, Crusaders minted deceiving copies of Ayyūbid Damascus gold
and silver coins with Muslim religious texts. Innocent IV banned such practices
in 1251, so Arab legends with Christian content, with a cross in the centre of
the obverse, were introduced on the new drachmas. They are all dated 1251, but
they were minted for several more years. The Muslim neighbours did not accept
these coins, so as early as 1253 the Accra mint returned to minting deceiving imitations.
