CNG 93, Lot: 489. Estimate $1000. Sold for $600. This amount does not include the buyer’s fee.

SELEUKID KINGS of SYRIA. Seleukos I Nikator. 312-281 BC. AR Unit (17mm, 2.79 g, 9h). Babylon I mint. Struck circa 311-300 BC. Head of Herakles right, wearing lion skin / Club and quiver-over-bow; monogram in wreath to left, H to right. SC 84; Price 3705 (this coin referenced [Sicurella]); A. Spaer, “A New Type of Alexander the Great?” INJ 5 (1981), 1; HGC 9, 70. VF, find patina, some light cleaning marks. Extremely rare, only two published.

Previous authors have noted the denomination of this rare issue as 1/5th tetradrachm or 1/5th stater, based on the Macedonian standard used from Archelaos through Philip II. However, the weights of the two published pieces, 3.19 g and 2.79 g, do not comport well with this idea. The fact that this type is only known in the far eastern mint of Babylon also makes such a weight standard doubtful. Unfortunately, the weights of these two pieces also do not comport well with the local Babylonian standard. Until more pieces come to light, their exact standard and denomination remains unknown.