Sale: Nomos 5, Lot: 200. Estimate CHF10000.  Closing Date: Monday, 24 October 2011.  Sold For CHF13000. This amount does not include the buyer’s fee.

SELEUKID KINGS of SYRIA. Seleukos I Nikator. 312-281 BC. Tetradrachm (Silver, 17.08 g 7), Seleukeia-on-the-Tigris, circa 296/5 and later. Laureate head of Zeus to right. Rev. ΒΑΣΙΛΕΩΣ ΣΕΛΕΥΚΟΥ Athena, hurling spear with her right hand and holding shield with her left, standing right in quadriga of elephants briskly moving to right; behind, Β; above and to right, anchor right and ΔΙ. ESM 29. SC 130.1b. A superb coin, bright and lightly toned, well struck and unusually well preserved. Good extremely fine.

Ex Nomos I, 6 May 2009, 118.

The elephant quadriga tetradrachms of Seleukos I were produced in the East. This unusual form of a quadriga served as a reminder of the 500 war elephants Seleukos received in settlement with Chandragupta in the Peace of 303; but it was probably immediately inspired by the well-nigh contemporary gold staters of Ptolemy I, which show the deified Alexander III riding in a quadriga of elephants moving slowly to the left.