From the Rosen Collection

Sale: Triton XIII, Lot: 95. Estimate $5000.  Closing Date: Monday, 4 January 2010.  Sold For $3500. This amount does not include the buyer’s fee.

THRACO-MACEDONIAN TRIBES, Derrones. Circa 480-465 BC. AR Dodekadrachm (33.68 g). Driver, holding goad in right hand, reins in left, driving ox cart right; above, crested Corinthian helmet right / Triskeles left [within incuse square]. Cf. Topalov 9; HPM pl. I, 14 = Traité I 1449, pl. XLIV, 9 (same dies); AMNG III/2, 6 var. (triskeles right); cf. SNG ANS 930. VF, toned, typical light roughness. Rare.

Ex Sotheby’s Zurich (27 October 1993), lot 322; Numismatic Fine Arts XXVI (14 August 1991), lot 52; Jonathan P. Rosen Collection (Münzen und Medaillen AG 72, 6 October 1987), lot 382; Münzen und Medaillen AG 64 (30 January 1984), lot 81.

The context and meaning of the types of the Derrones' dodekadrachms are still being debated. Little is known of this tribe other than what can be gleaned from their surviving coinage. Hoard find-spots suggest that they inhabited inland Paeonia, and the absence of their coins from the Asyut hoard suggests that the coinage postdates the burial of that hoard. The obverse type depicts a male figure who is most likely the tribal king and hereditary high priest while the helmet suggests a military reference.