Greek Silver & Bronze Coins

Lot 2527    SESSION 11 (9.30AM THURSDAY 25TH NOV)    Greek Silver & Bronze Coins

Estimate $20,000
Bid at live.noble.com.au
SOLD $16,000

EUBOIA, Chalkis, silver drachm (or Trite), (550-500 B.C.), (5.67 g), (Aeginatic standard), obv. two facing horses each with head facing each other in profile, the left horse with rider, all within circular die, rev. incuse square, divided diagonally into four triangles, (cf.S.1816, Lanz Sale 111, from the BCD Collection, [lot 113, This Coin], Traite II/I, 1832 ('uncertaines de Thrace'), W.W.Wroth NC 1890 31 (p.328 and Pl.XIX,20), H.Weber 'On some unpublished or rare Greek Coins' NC 1892 No.10, (p.189, Pl.XV,9), Seltman, 'Athens its History and Coinage before the Persian invasion' (Pl.XXIV for tridrachm), for dating see H.Gaebler ZfN 1925 (p.193ff), Gulbenkian Collection II [No.505], p.40], HGC 4, 1455 [p.423 R3] [This Coin illustrated]). Very fine and excessively rare.

Ex BCD collection, sold Numismatik Lanz Munchen, Sale 111 November 25, 2002 (lot 113) and previously from Gerhard Hirsch Auction Sale 148, 27th November 1985 (lot 35 where it realised 5300 +10% DM).
See Gulbenkian II, 505 for the tridrachm which would make this trite a drachm. Jenkins (above) rejects Seltman's 'Thrace' theory and agrees with Kraay (ACGC p.89 and footnote 2) and Price who had already transferred the British Museum specimen to the Chalkis trays. He dates these coins to the sixth century and says this particular denomination was the prototype for the early coins of the Chalkidian colonies in the West (Naxos, Zankle, Himera). An important early archaic coin with ambitious engraving very advanced for its sixth century date. The American Numismatic Society acquired an example a few years ago.