Sale: Nomos 3 & 4, Lot: 1130. Estimate CHF1000.  Closing Date: Monday, 9 May 2011.  Sold For CHF42000. This amount does not include the buyer’s fee.

THESSALY, Larissa. Circa 420-400 BC. Drachm (Silver, 6.11 g 12). Head of the nymph Larissa to right, her hair bound in a plain sakkos. Rev. ΛΑΡΙ - ΣΑΙ - Α Youth, Thessalos, wearing petasos and chlamys, standing right, restraining a bridled horse rushing to right; all within shallow incuse square. BMC 52. Herrmann pl. IV, 4. Lorber 2008, pl. 43, 61. Traité IV, 692, pl. CCXCVIII, 1. An attractive piece, toned and of lovely style. A particularly elegant coin. Nearly extremely fine.

A note from BCD: Many years ago, Herbert Cahn, speaking to a circle of collector friends, described this obverse die as his favorite die in the entire Larissa series. He went on to prove that he really meant it by bidding and buying for himself the de Sartiges coin of these dies, lot 113 at M+M auction 64 of 30 January 1984. The hammer price was CHF 5000, double the already high estimate. It was not often that the professor wanted a coin from one of this own sales but when he did it always was for a good reason (I will never forget the speed with which he knocked to his name lot 150 at the Kunstfreund auction during a moment’s hesitation in the bidding and after the coin had climbed up to CHF 11,500 from an estimate of just 4500). Since that time some new profile dies have made their appearance, such as the obverses of lots 1133 and 1134 below, but I somehow think that the good professor’s choice would still be the same.