Sale: CNG 82, Lot: 441. Estimate $500.  Closing Date: Wednesday, 16 September 2009.  Sold For $800. This amount does not include the buyer’s fee.

KINGS of MACEDON. Alexander III ‘the Great’. 336-323 BC. AR Tetradrachm (17.08 g, 1h). Uncertain mint. Struck 3rd century BC. Head of Herakles right, wearing lion skin / Zeus Aëtophoros seated left; club in left field. Price -; B. Rousseva, “La circulation monétaire en Thrace pendant la haute époque hellénistique (d’après des données des trésors trouvés des terres Bulgares” in RN 1990, pl. VI, 17 (same obv. die); CNG 70, lot 118 (same obv. die). EF. Very rare.

Ex Triton IX (10 January 2006), lot 787.

Rousseva’s example from the Čerpaev hoard (IGCH 468) is apparently the only example of this type published. She attributed that example, which was not linked to others in the hoard, based on the control mark, to Argos, circa 290-280 BC. While this date for any Alexanders at Argos is incorrect (see Price, as well as the intro to Argos in BCD Peloponnesos), an attribution to that city is unlikely for two reasons. First, the style is significantly different from other Argive Alexanders. Second, and most importantly, the style and fabric link this issue to coins with different controls (Phrygian helmet [Triton XII, 201] and akrostolion/serpent [Triton XI, 119 = Gemini III, 98]) that are not marks used at Argos. The overall style, and particularly that of the obverse portrait and the throne on the reverse, is most similar to the mints of Ionia in the 3rd century BC (see, e.g., Price pl. LVII, 1697 [Mytilene] and pl. LIX, 1874 [Ephesos]). Erythrai is known to use the club as a regular symbol, but always in conjunction with a monogram, and the controls of the related issues, noted above, also are not found there. Most problematic for attributing these coins to western Asia Minor is the appearance of a dotted border on the reverse of some of them, a characteristic that is not found at any of these mints in this period.