Greek Silver & Bronze Coins

Lot 4590    SESSION 11 (2PM FRIDAY 27TH NOVEMBER)    Greek Silver & Bronze Coins

Estimate $500
Bid at live.noble.com.au
SOLD $550

LYDIA, Persian Imperial Coinage, Kingdom of, Kroisos (Croesus), (c.564/563-550/539 B.C.), silver twelfth stater, (0.79 g), Sardes mint, obv. confronting foreparts of lion, facing right, and bull facing left, rev. two incuse punches of unequal size, side by side, (S.3422, Berk 26-27, SNG Ash 775 [Persian period], I. Carradice, Coinage of the Persian Empire BAR Inter. Ser. 343, [1987], -). Nearly extremely fine and very rare this nice.

Ex CNG Mail Bid Sale 61 September 25, 2002 (lot 2756 part). A similar example in CNG Mail Bid Sale 112 September 11, 2019 (lot 290) realised $1400US.
The 'Kroisos' type coinage is one of the most recognizable of all ancient Greek coinage. All the issues in gold and silver feature the same confronted lion and bull foreparts on the obverse, and the two incuse punches (or single punch on the smaller denominations) on the reverse. The series of the heavy issue in gold or silver are of equal weight 10.6-10.7 g and reduced according to half, third, sixth and twelfth stater. The first bimetallic series by weight with gold to silver ratio of 10:1. According to Herodotus, Kroisos was the first monarch to mint gold and silver coins. This coin the lightest in the series and one of the rarest is fixed at 1/12th of the stater in weight should be about 0.88 g.