Sale: Triton XIII, Lot: 534. Estimate $2000.  Closing Date: Monday, 4 January 2010.  Sold For $1300. This amount does not include the buyer’s fee.

KINGS of PARTHIA. Mithradates I. 165-132 BC. AR Drachm (3.73 g, 12h). Seleukeia on the Tigris mint. Dated SE 174 (139/8 BC). Diademed bust right, wearing long beard, within bead-and-reel border / BAΣIΛE[ΩΣ] MEΓAΛO[Y] down right field, APΣ AKOY down left, Zeus enthroned left, holding eagle in extended right hand and scepter in left; ΔOP (date) in exergue. Sellwood 13.10; Shore 39; PDC 24593 (this coin). Good VF, light obverse scrape. Excellent metal for issue. Rare.

From the Todd A. Ballen Collection. Ex Bellaria Collection (Classical Numismatic Group 66, 19 May 2004), lot 765; Sternberg XXVII (7-8 November 1994), lot 20.

A few years after Mithradates conquered Media and Atropatene, he attacked the Seleukid power base in Mesopotamia. He minted the S13 tetradrachms and drachms in celebration of his victory after the Seleucid royal mint fell to the Parthians in early July 141 BC This issue was finally terminated in 138 BC when the Seleukid king Demetrios II attempted to recover his losses by invading Mesopotamia. The Syrian king was defeated and captured by the Parthian forces in July or August of that same year.