CNG 87, Lot: 499. Estimate $15000. Sold for $9000. This amount does not include the buyer’s fee.

MYSIA, Lampsakos. Circa 394-350 BC. AV Stater (17mm, 8.36 g, 2h). Head of Athena facing slightly right, wearing triple-crested Attic helmet, earrings, and pearl necklace / Forepart of Pegasos flying right within shallow incuse square. Baldwin, Lampsakos 20; SNG France 1141 = Traité II 2541 (same obv. die); Gemini VII, lot 470 (same obv. die). VF, struck from worn dies. Very rare.

Lampsakos depended upon the traffic between the Aegean and the Black Sea, and possessed an excellent harbor in a strategic position guarding the eastern entrance to the Hellespont opposite Gallipolis. The city was known to have existed under the name of Pityusa before it received colonists from the Ionian cities of Phocaea and Miletus (Strabo xiii, p. 589). In the sixth and fifth centuries Lampsakos passed successively under Lydian, Persian, Athenian, and Spartan control. Its tribute of twelve talents, as a member of the Delian League, and production of electrum staters in the fifth century, attest to its commercial wealth. Following the example and standard of the Persic daric, Lampsakos was the first Greek city to make regular issues of gold coinage, which enjoyed an international circulation from Sicily to the Black Sea. As at Kyzikos, the quality of engraving was very high, and types changed frequently: about forty types were produced in a period of about sixty years. Many of the types featured Chthonic deities, those whose powers came from the earth, such as Demeter and Dionysos.