Sale: Nomos 3 & 4, Lot: 1122. Estimate CHF600.  Closing Date: Monday, 9 May 2011.  Sold For CHF3400. This amount does not include the buyer’s fee.

THESSALY, Larissa. Circa 440-400 BC. Drachm (Silver, 6.02 g 12). Thessalos, nude but for cloak over his shoulders and petasos hanging from a cord around his neck, holding a band in both his hands around the head of a bull rushing to right. Rev. ΛΑ / ΡΙΣ (partially retrograde) Bridled horse, with dangling rein, galloping right; all within incuse square. BMC 16. Herrmann -, but Group III. Lorber 2008, p. 42, 43. SNG Copenhagen 99 (same dies). Nicely toned with a dark patina. Nearly extremely fine.

Ex Leu 28, 5 May 1981, 97 (CHF 2100).

As stated in the note to lot 108, above, the Thessalian hero on the obverse is controlling the bull using a band that passes around the animal’s head. In some cases the bull’s strength pulls our hero off his feet! This band is often hard to see, or even invisible, but, as Pendleton pointed out, it is always there.