Sale: Nomos 6, Lot: 72. Estimate CHF1500.  Closing Date: Monday, 7 May 2012.  Sold For CHF1700. This amount does not include the buyer’s fee.

ARGOLIS, Halieis. Circa 370-350 BC. Obol (Silver, 0.96 g 7). Bearded head of Herakles to left, wearing lionskin headdress. Rev. Club downwards. BCD Peloponnesos 1279 (this coin. Svoronos 1912, 2145 = pl. 7, 33 (this coin). Traité III, 678, pl. CCXVI, 27. Extremely rare. Striking crack on edge. Nearly very fine.

From the BCD Collection, LHS 96, 8 May 2006, 1279 and from the collections of E. N. Mavrocordatou and A. Rhousopoulos.

The silver coinage of Halieis (actually struck in the name of the Tirynthians who had taken over the city) is of the very greatest rarity, with only a very few examples having survived. This piece, which Svoronos published one hundred years ago, comes from two famous old Greek collections and must have been found some time around the mid 19th century at the earliest.