Sale: Triton IX, Lot: 1042. Estimate $3000.  Closing Date: Monday, 9 January 2006.  Sold For $4000. This amount does not include the buyer’s fee.

SELEUKID KINGS of SYRIA. Antiochos Epiphanes. 128 BC. AR Tetradrachm (16.58 gm, 12h). Antioch mint. Diademed head right / BASILEWS ANTIOCOU EPIFANOUS, Tyche standing left, holding sceptre and cornucopiae; S to outer left, N in circle to inner right. Houghton & Le Rider 2 (D1/R1) = Houghton 689 (this coin; Tripolis mint); SMA -; SNG Spaer -. VF, iridescent toning, slightly weak strike in center. Extremely rare, one of four known. ($3000)

From the Arthur Houghton Collection, 689.

This coinage of a young king with the name and epithet of Antiochos Epiphanes was originally attributed by Houghton & Le Rider to an ephemeral childhood reign of Antiochos VIII, under the regency of his mother, Cleopatra Thea. This attribution was challenged by K. Ehling, in "Die Nachfolgeregelung des Antiochos VII. vor seinem Aufbruch in den Parthierkrieg (131 v.Chr.)," JNG XLVI (1996), who argued that Antiochos VIII was too old for the obviously very young portrait on these coins. He thought it was also a son of Cleopatra, but from her marriage to Antiochos VII, and that it was issued in 131, at the time of Antiochos' Parthian campaign. Houghton and Lorber, in SC (forthcoming), note that the control mark linkage affirms the later date of 128 BC, and maintain that this is still an issue under Cleopatra, but perhaps of the eldest son of Antiochos VII. Of the four known tetradrachms of this Antiochos' reign, only two are available to collectors (and were sold at, respectively, Leu 28 [5 May 1981], lot 200 [realized 23000 Sfr], and Numismatic Fine Arts XVIII [31 March 1987], lot 383 [realized $8000]); the other two are in the BN and the ANS.