INDIA, VIDARBHA or ASHMAKA janapada: AR punchmarked 1/3 karshapana. UNPUBLISHED, VERY RARE and CHOICE!

Obverse	Four punches: Elephant left with circle (sun?) above, Bull left with circle (sun?) before, Eye (netrabindumandala) and yoked team of plough oxen with pellets before. See line drawing for full depiction of punches.
Reverse	Blank
Date	c. 5th century BCE
Weight	1.19 gm.
Dimensions	20 x 14 mm.
Die axis	n.a.
Reference	Rajgor 27v (Andhra janapada), Kulkarni V2.7var
Comments	This coin is a variant of Rajgor 27, which he attributed to the Andhra janapada because that coin type was known from a single hoard found in Andhra. There have now been multiple finds of similar coins in Vidarbha. See Prashant P. Kulkarni's paper "Coins of Vidarbha Janapada" in the ONS Newsletter, 178, Winter 2004 and Kulkarni: Archaic Coinage of Godavari Valley and the Deccan, 2022. The variation from Raj 27 is that the bull here faces left, while in Raj 27 it faces right. This coin has a remarkable feature not noted on any coin type in Kulkarni's comprehensive catalogue of these coins. Instead of a pellet (moon?), there is a circle (sun?) in front of the bull (see at around 2 o'clock on the coin image. A CHOICE example of an UNPUBLISHED type!