Triton XV, Lot: 760. Estimate $125. Sold for $500. This amount does not include the buyer’s fee.

THESSALY, Thebai. Early 3rd century BC. Æ Chalkous (14mm, 2.12 g, 10h). Head of Demeter r., wearing grain wreath; hair rolled and flowing at the back / ʘHBAIΩN l. up (most letters only partly showing), Protesilaos, armoured and wearing short chiton and crested helmet, holding shield with his l. and sword in his r., stepping off the prow of a galley. Rogers 551, fig. 308; Weber 2931; rare. Near VF, dark green patina; rev. struck on a small flan and slightly off centre, missing the top of Protesilaos’ head.

Acquired from J. C. Holm in Copenhagen, October 1966, for 10 Dkr and from the duplicates of the SNG Copenhagen..

In the early 60’s, Mr. Holm exchanged a unique and extremely important early Danish coin for many boxes of the Copenhagen museum’s Greek duplicates that were not published in the SNG. The writer was shown some of these boxes and spent many hours sorting out the more desirable pieces for his collection. When the time came to pay, Mr. Holm said that the buyer would have to work out the prices as he himself was not up to date with the Greek coin market. This was quite unexpected and a very clever move from the part of the seller as it made the buyer quote very generous figures so that the seller would not for a moment think that the buyer was trying to take advantage of him. Needless to say, this was by no means the last visit to Mr. Holm’s shop. As there were no other interested parties for this material, the writer ended up buying practically everything that was within his collecting areas.