Triton XV, Lot: 1345. Estimate $20000. Sold for $12000. This amount does not include the buyer’s fee.

BAKTRIA, Greco-Baktrian Kingdom. temp. Demetrios I Aniketos (?). Circa 200-185 BC. AV Unit (10mm, 1.06 g). Uncertain object (shield [?]); bead-and-reel border / Caduceus; – C to right; bead-and-reel border. Bopearachchi -; O. Bopearachchi, “Two more unique coins from the second Mir Zakah deposit,” ONS Newsletter 169 (Autumn 2001), pp. 21-22 (this coin); Bopearachchi & Rahman -; SNG ANS -; MIG -. Good VF, a few minor field marks, obverse struck with worn die. Unique.

Ex 1992 Mir Zakah Hoard.

Like the gold coin from Pushkalavati (see lot 1365 below), this coin represents one of the handful of examples of non-royal coinage of the region. Based on the bead-and-reel obverse and reverse borders and linking the use of the caduceus on this coin to those bronze issues of Demetrios I with the caduceus on the reverse, Bopearachchi dated this gold coin to the time of that king. Another possibility could be that this gold coin was struck at the time of the Indo-Skythian king Maues, who also had bronze issues with the bead-and-reel border (though only on the obverse) and the caduceus as a reverse type.