Unique Antiochos III Oktadrachm

Sale: Triton XI, Lot: 292. Estimate $40000.  Closing Date: Monday, 7 January 2008.  Sold For $37500. This amount does not include the buyer’s fee.

SELEUKID KINGS of SYRIA. Antiochos III ‘the Great’. 223-187 BC. AV Oktadrachm (34.00 g, 12h). Seleukeia on the Tigris mint. Struck circa 211/0 BC. Diademed head right / BASILEWS ANTIOCOU, Apollo Delphios seated left on omphalos, testing arrow in his right hand, left hand on bow set on ground behind; monograms to outer left and right. SC 1158 (this coin), otherwise unpublished. VF, field marks, minor smoothing, hair detail strengthened. Unique.

From SC: “[T]his octadrachm was struck from fresh dies and was almost certainly distributed in the winter of 211/10, when Antiochus wintered with his army at Seleucia, prior to his departure for the Upper Satrapies. The powerful portrait, quite distinct from the established manner at Seleucia, must represent a special commission and should therefore reflect the king’s appearance c. 210. The occasion commemorated ... will have been the recent Armenian victory.”