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Research Coins: Affiliated Auction

 
Sale: Nomos 3 & 4, Lot: 1024. Estimate CHF750. 
Closing Date: Monday, 9 May 2011. 
Sold For CHF2400. This amount does not include the buyer’s fee.

THESSALY, Atrax. Circa 370s-360s BC. Trichalkon (Bronze, 17mm, 4.65 g 7). Horseman galloping to left, his cloak flying out behind him, pursuing a bull running left. Rev. ΑΤΡΑΓΙΟΝ Bearded head of the Lapith Atrax to right. Unpublished, but for another example see CNG MBS 79, 17 September 2008, 183. Extremely rare. An attractive coin with a dark, shiny, nearly black patina. Reverse very slightly double-struck, otherwise, extremely fine.


The obverse shows us one of the sports that was so popular with the aristocrats of Thessaly: the rider is not herding the bull but is, rather, preparing to jump off his horse and wrestle the bull to a halt. The head on the reverse is of the eponymous founder of the city, the Lapith Atrax, and surely reflects an actual, probably late Archaic, statue which must have been in the city.