CNG 97, Lot: 86. Estimate $1000. Sold for $850. This amount does not include the buyer’s fee.

KINGS of MACEDON. Alexander III ‘the Great’. 336-323 BC. AR Hemidrachm (11mm, 2.08 g, 2h). Amphipolis mint. Struck under Antipater, circa 325-323/2 BC. Head of Herakles right, wearing lion skin / Eagle standing right on thunderbolt(?); pellet-in-Π at end of legend. Unpublished. VF, toned, granular surface. Apparently unique eagle fraction.

Ex Mieza Collection (Nomos 7, 15 May 2013), lot 56; Gemini VI (10 January 2010), lot 73.

In the final years of Alexander’s reign, the Amphipolis mint struck issues with both the eagle and Zeus reverse types, which are linked by control marks (cf. Troxell, Studies, pp. 30–40). The control mark on the present coin, a pellet (or omicron) within a large pi, is known on drachms of Zeus type (Troxell, Studies p. 32 = Price 141), which Troxell assigns to either her Issues E or F (her assignment of the fractional coin is based on her analysis of the tetradrachms, but no tetradrachms from this period have this control mark). The present hemidrachm may have been struck from the same obverse die as Troxell, Studies 188 = Price 90, which would place this coins with this control mark in Issue E.