Sale: Nomos 3 & 4, Lot: 32. Estimate CHF4500.  Closing Date: Monday, 9 May 2011.  Sold For CHF3600. This amount does not include the buyer’s fee.

SICILY, Syracuse. Dion. 357-354 BC. Hemilitron (Bronze, 3.37 g 12). ΖΕΥΣ ΕΛΕΥΘΕΡΙΟΣ Laureate head of Zeus to left Rev. ΣΥΡΑΚΟΣΙΩΝ Octopus with head at top. CNS 75/4 = Weber 1657 (same dies). LHS 100, 23 April 2007, 189 (same dies). SNG Cop 731. SNG Morcom 737. Extremely rare and with a splendid dark green patina. One of the finest examples known. Extremely fine.

From the Z collecttion, Switzerland..

The Zeus/Thunderbolt bronzes (hemidrachms or litrai) were issued by Dion in very large numbers, but their accompanying Zeus/Octopus fractions, as this, were very rare and were struck using only a small number of die pairs. The head of Zeus Eleutherios, ‘Zeus the Liberator’, is particularly well designed and elegant; the octopus on the reverse harks back to Syracuse’s bronze and silver fractions of the 5th century.