Sale: Nomos 8, Lot: 151. Estimate CHF300.  Closing Date: Monday, 21 October 2013.  Sold For CHF550. This amount does not include the buyer’s fee.

EUBOIA, Histiaia. 3rd-2nd centuries BC. Tetrobol (Silver, 14mm, 2.39 g 12). Head of the nymph Histiaia to right, wearing a drop earring, a pearl necklace and with her hair rolled and bound with a wreath of grape leaves and berries. Rev. ΙΣΤΙ - ΑΙΕΩΝ (partially retrograde) Nymph seated right on stern of galley, holding styis in her left hand and resting her right on the deck; on the side of the stern, wing. BCD Euboia 402 var. BMC 101. An attractive, fresh and clear example. Extremely fine.

From a northern European collection.

The late tetrobol coinage of Histiaia was one of the major silver issues of the earlier 2nd century BC (though it surely began in the 3rd), but no one has ever dared to try to put it in any real order. It would be pleasant if we could point to the issues without magistrates’ names as being the earliest, but coins of this type bear obverses that are so different from each other stylistically that putting them all in the same group would be a mistake. However, the unusually fine workmanship of both the obverse and reverse of this coin points towards a date early in the series.