Triton XV, Lot: 613. Estimate $200. Sold for $800. This amount does not include the buyer’s fee.

THESSALY, Pharkadon. 3rd quarter of the 4th century BC. Æ Dichalkon (19mm, 3.16 g, 8h). Horse with straight legs grazing r., dotted border / ΦAPKAΔ-ONION in two lines, crescent, its horns upwards, above it, star of six rays. See CNG 79 (17 September 2008) 198 (same dies). VF, dark brownish green patina; lower part of the obv. struck a little softly; small die break on the Δ of the ethnic on the rev., well centred and struck on a generous flan, far neater than the average coin of these types.

On these coins, in order to be able to read at least the first half of the inscription, the reverse crescent had to be seen with its horns pointing up for three coins and down for the other three. Rogers has the crescent horns pointing down in his two photographs and so do Babelon in Traité and Gardner in the BMC. However, all the coins they describe, happen to read satisfactorily that particular way. In this catalogue the crescents are placed in the manner that facilitates reading at least the first part of the inscription and this can differ from coin to coin. It appears therefore that recording the die positions on these coins is pointless, more so because they appear to be irregular. If they all were either 6 or 12 o’clock it could be claimed that the mint was striking with adjusted dies, i.e. in a more organized manner. This is certainly not the case here and therefore the suggestion that there was little or no supervision during the production of this series and that the workers who did the actual striking were not experienced enough, is justified (see Nomos 4, the BCD note after lot 1276).