Sale: Nomos 3 & 4, Lot: 1051. Estimate CHF150.  Closing Date: Monday, 9 May 2011.  Sold For CHF1100. This amount does not include the buyer’s fee.

THESSALY, Gyrton. Circa 340s-330s BC. Dichalkon (Bronze, 17mm, 4.39 g 12). Bare male head to right, the Hero Gyrton, to the left of the head of a bridled horse to right. Rev. ΓΥΡΤΩΝΙΩΝ (on right downwards,some letters retrograde) Head of the nymph Gyrtona to right, her hair bound in a roll and wearing an earring and a necklace. Rogers 227. SNG Copenhagen 55-56 var. Dark patina. Good very fine.

The coinage of Gyrton is quite extensive, but is primarily in bronze. The earliest issues are those, like this one, which bear the ‘jugate’ heads of Gyrton and his horse combined with a head of Gyrtona on the reverse. Liampi, in SNG Munich 12, has dated these coins, and others bearing Gyrtona on their reverses, to the earlier 4th century and all the later, with heads of Zeus and a prancing horse on the reverse, to the second half of the century. The late style of those coins, which is somewhat similar to the latest issues of Atrax (above, lot 33) makes a case for their being later. In any case the coins of Gyrton were struck in considerable numbers: most today, as with most Thessalian coinages, are in poor condition.