CNG 91, Lot: 104. Estimate $5000. Sold for $3000. This amount does not include the buyer’s fee.

THRACO-MACEDONIAN TRIBES, Uncertain. Circa 500-480 BC. AR Stater (22mm, 9.16 g). Centaur right, carrying off protesting nymph; pellet border / Quadripartite incuse square. Topalov –; HPM pl. VI, 15 and 17-18; AMNG III/2, pl. XXV, 10; SNG ANS 980 (Orreskioi). EF, toned.

The centaur-nymph motif was used by a number of Thraco-Macedonian tribes, and at least three tribes, the Orreskioi, Letaioi, and the Zaelioi, inscribed their ethnic on the obverse. The present coin, though, belongs to the quantity of unsigned issues which cannot yet be assigned to a particular tribe, although the cataloger of the ANS sylloge assumed the issue was from the Orreskioi. Moreover, the obverse on this coin has a pellet border, which is not present on any of the signed issues. This type also was declared a forgery by Gaebler in AMNG, along with many other Thraco-Macedonian issues, but his views on these were never adopted by other numismatists, and later hoards have proven his condemnations to be unfounded.