Description

Nomos 10, Lot: 11. Estimate CHF75000. Sold for CHF85000. This amount does not include the buyer’s fee.

SICILY, Syracuse. Gelon I, 485-478 BC. Tetradrachm (Silver, 29mm, 17.24 g 12), c. 485-483. Male charioteer, wearing a long chiton and holding a goad in his right hand and the reins in both, driving a walking quadriga to right; above Nike flying right to crown the horses. Rev. VR Head of Arethusa to right, wearing necklace and pearl diadem, and with her hair tied in a krobylos that is bound up and falls over her diadem; around, four dolphins swimming clockwise. Boehringer 45. Rizzo pl. XXXIV, 10 (same obverse die) and 22 (similar reverse). Very rare. Attractively toned - a superb, high relief example of late archaic style. Extremely fine.

From the Star Collection, LHS 102, 29 April 2008, 77 and ex Numismatica Ars Classica 9, 16 April 1996, 202.

This is a remarkable coin, surely one of the finest examples of the pre-Demareteion coinage of Syracuse. Its dies were beautifully engraved and it was very well struck.