ISLAMIC, 'Abbasid Caliphate. temp. Al-Mansur, AH 136-158 / AD 754-775. Fals (Bronze, 19 mm, 2.71 g, 6 h), Samarqand, AH 144 = 761/2. Citing governor al-Ashʿath ibn Yahya, and al-Mahdi Muhammad, son and heir of al-Mansur, in the reverse margin. Within a dotted circle, ‘lā ilāha / illā Allāh / waḥdahū’ (‘There is no deity but Allah, the One’ in Arabic); in the margin, ‘ḍuriba bi Samarqand sana arbaʿ wa arbaʿīn wa miʾa’ (‘Struck in Samarqand in the year 144’ in Arabic). Rev. Within a dotted circle, ‘Muḥammad / rasūl / Allāh’ (‘Muhammad is the messenger of Allah’ in Arabic); Tamgha of Samarqand; in the margin, ‘amara bihī al-Ashʿath ibn Yaḥyā fī vilāyat al-Mahdī al-amīr Muḥammad ibn amīr al-muʾminīn’ (‘al-Ashʿath ibn Yahya ordered it under the authority of amir al-Mahdi Muhammad, son of the Commander of the Believers’ in Arabic). Album 334. Very rare and unusually well preserved. Some deposits, otherwise, about extremely fine.