Sale: Triton V, Lot: 1366. Estimate $2000.  Closing Date: Wednesday, 16 January 2002.  Sold For $1700. This amount does not include the buyer’s fee.

ATTICA, Athens. After 449 BC. AR Tetradrachm (17.17 gm). Helmeted head of Athena right, wearing crested Attic helmet decorated with three olive leaves over visor and a spiral palmette on the bowl / AQE, owl standing right, head facing; olive sprig and crescent behind. SNG Copenhagen 31ff. EF, trace of hoard patina on obverse below head, well struck and bold. ($2000)

From the William N. Rudman Collection.

Starr dated the mass issues of Group V archaizing tetradrachms to the time of Delian League transfer of 454, when Perikles declared that the League’s treasure was not safe from the Persian navy and had it removed to Athens, or to after the Currency Decree of 449. This theory is discredited if the recent 'Dekadrachm Hoard' is correctly dated (see S. Fried, BAR Series 343 (1987) and NFA Sale 20 (1988), lots 690-695). The hoard terminates in 465/2, with the implication that the Group V Athenian silver coinage derived, at least initially, from the Thracian mines of Thasos and began circa 462.