Truly Enigmatic!

CNG 90, Lot: 545. Estimate $1000. Sold for $2000. This amount does not include the buyer’s fee.

ISLANDS off ATTICA, Aegina. Circa 525/0-500 BC. AR Stater (19mm, 11.69 g). Sea turtle [with thick collar and row of dots down its back]; countermark in right field: uncertain symbol (prow?) in incuse square / Incuse square of “Union Jack” pattern with five incuse and three raised segments. For coin: Milbank Period I; Asyut Group IIIa, 471; SNG Copenhagen 503; HGC 6, 430; SNG Delepierre 1514; Dewing 1660. Countermark apparently unpublished. Near VF, toned, granular surfacs, weakly overstruck by uncertain type, with legend EΛΛHNIKΩN Σ[?]A[....] visible on the reverse, and perhaps the letter A, a rosette, and a pellet on the obverse.

Ex Superior (7 December 1972), lot 142; Hans Holzer Collection.

According to the note in the Superior sale, the coin’s original owner, the prominent archaeologist, numismatist, and pioneering paranormal researcher Hans Holzer, presented the coin to numismatists at the British Museum and the American Numismatic Society, and none could offer any explanation for the overstrike or countermarking (to this cataloger, the letter forms of the overstrike seem significantly later in character, compared to the early date of the coin). Hans Holzer was a member of the Royal Numismatic Society, French Numismatic Society, and the Austrian Numismatic Society, and wrote numerous articles on a wide variety of subjects for the Numismatic Review, The Numismatist, and other magazines. Numismatically, he is well known for cataloging the Thomas Olive Mabbott Collection for H. Schulman. A member of the American Institute of Archaeology, he studied at the University of Vienna and Columbia University, and received a Master's Degree and PhD from the London College of Applied Science. He is popularly known for his pioneering research in parapsychology, including his investigation of the “Amityville Horror” in 1977, and as a producer and writer for the television series In Search Of....