WIDOW'S MITE PRUTAH: This is an economical cleaned widow's mite prutah of King and High Priest Alexander Janneaus.   The star and anchor images are complete and nicely centered on both sides of the coin.   This coin comes with a coin flip with a description of the coin and a specialty widow's mite coin envelope. 

A PURELY JUDEAN COIN: This coin was minted while Judea was self-governing, not under Greek, Seleukid, or Roman occupation. This The coins were minted under King and High Priest Alexander Jannaeus who ruled from 103-76 BC. The coin was minted at the time that the 2nd Temple existed. The Maccabean war was over and Israel was no longer under the Greek/Syrian rule and Herod the Great had not yet come to power along with his Roman occupation. A truly Jewish coin. These coins continued in regular circulation in Israel till about 70 AD.

WIDOW'S MITE CHARACTERISTICS: Widow's mite coins were minted under King and High Priest Alexander Jannaeus during his reign from 103-76BC. The smaller widow's mite coin were called "leptons" and the larger coin were called "prutahs" The coins were very similar in that they were minted at the same time under the same ruler with the same basic images, an anchor on one side and star on the reverse. The lepton was the smaller coin and was considered to be a half prutah. While the lepton was a "half prutah", the coins were often crudely made with many heavier and larger leptons and many smaller and lighter prutahs. Thus, these coins were often comingled with leptons and prutahs mixed together. A lepton was a half prutah. Both coins had the images of an anchor and star images on them.