Triton XVII, Lot: 317. Estimate $5000. Sold for $10000. This amount does not include the buyer’s fee.

IONIA, Uncertain. Circa 600-550 BC. EL Hekte – Sixth Stater (10mm, 2.37 g). Lydo-Milesian standard. Figural type. Bridled horse head left / Rough incuse square. Weidauer 141 = Weber 5718; cf. Traité I 70 (stater); cf. SNG Kayhan 715–8 (fractions); Gorny & Mosch 211, lot 337. Superb EF, lightly toned. Very rare, and finer than the Gorny specimen, which realized a hammer of €17,000.

This rare type, known in only small numbers but in a series of denominations, from stater to myshemhekte, is among the very earliest of figural coins. Its early date is proven by the presence in the Artemision foundation deposit of a hemihekte and myshemihekte of this issue (E.S.G. Robinson, “Coins from the Ephesian Artemision Reconsidered” in JHS LXXI [1951], 24–5). The present coin, with an exceptionally fresh obverse die, is perhaps the finest known. The superb example that was in Gorny & Mosch 211 (4 March 2013), lot 337, while in a high state of preservation, was struck from an die that had begun to deteriorate and develop small cracks.