Unique and Unpublished Drachm

Sale: CNG 75, Lot: 99. Estimate $1000.  Closing Date: Wednesday, 23 May 2007.  Sold For $900. This amount does not include the buyer’s fee.

THRACE, Abdera. Circa 480-473/0 BC. AR Drachm (3.13 g). Hegesip-, magistrate. Griffin (type B) seated left, raising right forepaw; H-GHSI-P / Quadripartite incuse square. Unpublished. EF, toned. Unique.

The types on this coin clearly place it within May’s period III coinage. May’s group XXXVI in this period was struck by a magistrate Hege-, but his known drachms all use a different variety of griffin (May’s type C). Nonetheless, griffin types C and B are used simultaneously on drachms of Anti- during this period (cf. May 65-66). Another possibility is that this coin was the earliest issue of the period IV magistrate Hegesippos (May group LXIII). Whether he is the same person as period III’s Hege- is unknown, but it is possible that Hegesippos began signing dies just at the end of period III, but soon changed to the new specifications of period IV.