CNG 85, Lot: 542. Estimate $2000. Sold for $1800. This amount does not include the buyer’s fee.

PTOLEMAIC KINGS of EGYPT. Ptolemy V Epiphanes. 205-180 BC. AR Tetradrachm (24mm, 13.70 g, 1h). Military mint in Phoenicia. Struck circa 202-200 BC. Diademed and draped bust of Ptolemy V right / BAΣIΛEΩΣ ΠTOΛEMAIOY, eagle standing left on thunderbolt; Σ to left. Svoronos 1293a (same obv. die); Mørkholm, Portrait, Group III (A3/P7[?]); SNG Copenhagen -; BMC 68. Good VF, toned.

From the George & Julia Fekula Collection. Ex Numismatic Fine Arts XXIII (14 December 1989), lot 828.

The portrait coinage of Ptolemy V is a distinctive series in an otherwise monotonous succession of increasingly stereotyped renditions of the features of the founder of the dynasty, Ptolemy I. Mørkholm argued that most, if not all, of these portrait types were struck in Phoenician mints, many of the types being die-linked with mint marked pieces from Sidon, and most of the hoards being found in that region. In addition, the interlinking of dies within each series points to a limited period of minting, perhaps for only a few years after 202 BC, when Ptolemy V was fighting a losing battle to keep his Phoenician territories from falling to Antiochos III of Syria. His portrait types, along with scarcer types showing his parents Ptolemy IV and Arsinoë III, lent immediacy to the Ptolemaic presence in Phoenicia.