Sale: Nomos 1, Lot: 18. Estimate CHF100000.  Closing Date: Tuesday, 5 May 2009.  Sold For CHF130000. This amount does not include the buyer’s fee.

SICILY, Akragas. Circa 409-406 BC. Tetradrachm (Silver, 17.43 g 7). ΑΚΡΑΓ ΑΝΤΙΝΟΝ (second part retrograde) Nike driving galloping quadriga to left, holding the reins of three horses with her left hand (one rein is trailing on the ground in front) and a goad in her left; above, hanging on a nail, a tablet inscribed with the city name but with the spacing misjudged and the last two letters in the field; in exergue, long, thin club Rev. Two eagles standing right on dead hare lying on a rock; the closer eagle has closed wings and his head raised in triumph, while the further has open wings and his head bent to tear at the hare; behind to left, lion’s head with open mouth to left. De Luynes 858 = Kraay/Hirmer 181 = Rizzo pl. III, 4 = Seltman, Engravers 14 . Extremely rare. A coin of great beauty and numismatic importance. Lightly toned. Some minor flatness of strike, otherwise, extremely fine.

The late coinage of Akragas, struck in the years just before the Carthaginian capture of the city in 406, was the most magnificent in the city’s history. It included the famous dekadrachm, gold pieces and a variety of quadriga/two eagles tetradrachms that are all of superb quality. Seltman suggested that some of the finest engravers in Sicily made the dies for these coin, ascribing the obverse of this piece to Kimon and the reverse, very probably, to Polykrates or one of his followers. Both sides are powerful representations: the pair of eagles are perfectly detailed and the quadriga is excitingly realistic, especially with the rein dangling from the farthest horse.