First Athena Alkidemos Issue

Sale: Triton XII, Lot: 379. Estimate $1500.  Closing Date: Monday, 5 January 2009.  Sold For $3250. This amount does not include the buyer’s fee.

PTOLEMAIC KINGS of EGYPT. Ptolemy I Soter. As satrap, 323-305 BC. AR Tetradrachm (17.18 g, 12h). Attic standard. Alexandreia mint. Struck 311 BC. Diademed head of the deified Alexander right, wearing elephant skin / AΛEΞANΔPOY, Athena Alkidemos advancing right; to right, eagle standing right on thunderbolt above ΔI. Svoronos 33; Zervos series D, issue XIII; SNG Copenhagen 14; BMC 7; Noske -. EF, toned, small area of roughness at bottom of reverse.

From the Norman Frank Collection.

This issue was the first to feature the new Ptolemaic reverse type of Athena Alkidemos, as well as being the first that was certainly struck in Alexandreia (see C. Lorber, “A Revised Chronology for the Coinage of Ptolemy I,” NC 2005, pp. 62-3).