Greek Silver & Bronze Coins

Lot 2569    SESSION 11 (9.30AM THURSDAY 25TH MARCH)    Greek Silver & Bronze Coins

Estimate $10,000
Bid at live.noble.com.au
SOLD $7,200

THRACO-MACEDONIAN TRIBES, The Derrones, (c.480-460 B.C.), silver dodekadrachm, (39.94 grams), obv. ox-cart driven left by male driver wearing kausia and holding goad, crested Corinthian helmet above ox, dotted boarder, dotted exergue line, rev. triskeles to right, AMNG III 7, (p.56, Pl.XXV,18 same dies = Berlin Collection No.80 p.174); cf.SNG ANS 930 (Pl.35), Svoronos, Primitif 16 (p.9, Pl.11,4 {same dies} = Gaebler 9 (same dies, P.296); Babelon Traite 1450 (p.1046, Pl.XLIV, 7 {same dies}. Very fine and very rare.

From a recent hoard of less than twenty pieces. A similar example offered by Freeman and Sear for $25,000US. The Kunstfreund (lot 38)/Hunt 1(lot 61) realised $40,000. The context and meaning of the types of the Derrones' dodekadrachms are still being debated. Little know of this tribe other than what can be gleaned from their surviving coinage. Hoard find-spots suggests that they inhabited inland Paeonia, and the absence of their coins from the Asyut hoard suggests that the coinage postdates the burial of that hoard. The obverse type depicts a male figure who is most likely the tribal king and hereditary high priest while the helmet suggets a miltary reference.