CNG 97, Lot: 14. Estimate $500. Sold for $6000. This amount does not include the buyer’s fee.

BRUTTIUM, Kroton. Circa 400-325 BC. AR Nomos (21mm, 7.63 g, 8h). Head of Hera Lakinia facing slightly right, wearing stephane decorated with palmettes / Herakles Epitrapezios: young Herakles, nude, holding cup and club, reclining left on lion skin draped over rock; bow to lower right. Attianese 135 (same dies as illustration); HN Italy 2167. VF, toned, a little off center, miniscule die break on obverse.

Attianese notes that this obverse die has an engraver’s signature below the necklace on Hera Lakinia. While it would be off the flan on this piece, it also is not visible on the example he illustrates in his book on Kroton. Interestingly, he cross-references this issue to no. 142 in volume I of his Calabria Greca, which illustrates a piece in a private collection that supposedly shows this signature. Although Attianese provides an enlargement of this piece on p. 226 of that volume, the inscription is not clearly visible, and if it is present, it must actually be below the truncation of Hera’s neck, not below her necklace. HN does not note any issue that is signed.