Prototype for Syracuse

CNG 84, Lot: 203. Estimate $3000. Sold for $3200. This amount does not include the buyer’s fee.

THRACO-MACEDONIAN REGION, Uncertain. Circa 500 BC. AR Tetradrachm (22mm, 17.11 g, 8h). Charioteer driving quadriga right; globe above / Eagle flying left within incuse square within larger diagonally divided quadripartite incuse square. H.A. Cahn, “‘Olynthos’ and Syracuse,” Essays Thompson, variety B; SNG ANS (Macedon) 463; Berlin p. 104, 1; Boston MFA 612; Jameson 955 = Kunstfreund 34; Pozzi 744. VF, toned, usual compact flan. Extremely rare.

This type had traditionally been attributed to Olynthos in Macedon, but Cahn has convincingly shown that the evidence for this attribution was fatally flawed. Although he was unable to reassign it to a particular mint, Cahn was able to establish that it was certainly from the Thraco-Macedonian region, based primarily on the characteristics of the flan, the diagonal form of the incuse, and the presence of the globe on the obverse. He also made a strong argument in favor of this issue being the prototype for the famous quadriga tetradrachms of Syracuse.