Sale: Nomos 5, Lot: 178. Estimate CHF30000.  Closing Date: Monday, 24 October 2011.  Sold For CHF38000. This amount does not include the buyer’s fee.

MYSIA, Lampsakos. Circa 394-350 BC. Stater (Gold, 8.41 g). Head of a female divinity to left (perhaps Aphrodite), wearing a lotos wreath, sphendone and a pendant earring. Rev. Forepart of Pegasos to right; all within shallow incuse square. Baldwin, Lampsakos 41b (this coin). SNG France 1142. Very rare, most attractive and with a splendid pedigree. Struck from worn dies and with some very slight die rust on the obverse, otherwise,, nearly extremely fine.

Ex Numismatica Ars Classica 27, 12 May 2004, 178, Leu 42, 12 May 1987, 286 and from the collection of Charles Gillet, acquired as a duplicate from the Bibliothèque National, Paris, and from the Waddington Collection (864).

This splendid coin was formerly in the Cabinet des Médailles in Paris, where it came as part of the enormous Waddington bequest. It was disposed of during the 1930s to Charles Gillet since it was a die duplicate of the de Luÿnes piece (SNG Paris 1142) that was already in the museum’s trays. One can not have a better pedigree! The horse on the reverse of this coin is usually identified as Pegasos but some scholars think it is just a “winged horse,” in analogy to the winged boar at Klazomenai. Yet, since the most famous of all winged horses was Pegasos it seems more than likely that this is what we have here.