183, Lot: 242. Estimate $200. Sold for $660. This amount does not include the buyer’s fee.

GREEK. Northern Greece. Æ of Philip II. Includes: Diademed head of Apollo right / Youth on horseback riding right (18) // Diademed head of Apollo right / Youth on horseback riding left // Diademed head of Apollo left / Youth on horseback riding left (2) // Diademed head of Apollo left / Youth on horseback riding right (2). Various monograms or symbols below horse. Good Fine condition or better, mostly green patinas, some deposits. LOT SOLD AS IS, NO RETURNS. Twenty-three (23) coins in lot.

These coins feature the head of the god Apollo, who became the tutelary deity of Philip II in 353 BC during the Third Sacred War. Vowing he would fight on behalf of the god, whose sacred Treasury at Delphi had been stolen, precipitating the conflict, he used the war as an opportunity to expand his control in Greece. The rider on the reverse, similar to the reverse of his tetradrachms, ostensibly extolls his victory in the horse race at Olympia in 356 BC. However, the reverse also recalls the earlier Macedonian royal types, possibly an attempt to emphasize his Macedonian ancestry.

Although the bronze coinage in the name of Philip II of Macedon are one of the most prolific of the Greek series, and are widely available in the marketplace, no comprehensive study has ever been published on them. Moreover, these coins most often appear in large groups, likely reflecting the discovery of a hoard, but only a handful have ever been recorded. In one of the most recent of these ("A 1992 Hoard of Bronze Coins of Philip II from Beroia in Thrace," Travaux Le Rider, pp. 161-165), C. Hersh echoes the earlier appeal of A. Bellinger: "it is immediately apparent how badly we need a systematic study of Philip's (bronze) coinage...."