Extremely Rare Portrait of Ptolemy II

CNG 93, Lot: 609. Estimate $1000. Sold for $5000. This amount does not include the buyer’s fee.

PTOLEMAIC KINGS of EGYPT. Ptolemy II Philadelphos. 285-246 BC. AR Tetradrachm (26mm, 13.88 g, 12h). Uncertain mint in Cilicia. Struck circa 259-255 BC. Diademed head right / Eagle standing left on thunderbolt; retrograde K to right. Svoronos 910 = BMC pl. XXXII, 5 var. (control marks); otherwise unpublished. VF, toned. A unique variety of an extremely rare portrait tetradrachm of Ptolemy II.

Ex Athena Fund (Sotheby’s Zurich, 27 October 1993), lot 934 (part of); W. Wahler Collection.

The portrait coins of Ptolemy II were struck at a mint in Cilicia during the Second Syrian War, after the Lagids captured Tarsos from the Seleukids (see A. Davesne, “La deuxième guerre de Syrie (ca. 261-255 avant J.-C.) et les témoignages numismatiques,” in Travaux Le Rider, pp. 123–34). Only a handful of these coins exist today, and nearly all are in public collections.