CNG 97, Lot: 399. Estimate $500. Sold for $1400. This amount does not include the buyer’s fee.

PHILISTIA (PALESTINE), Uncertain mint. Mid 5th century-333 BC. AR Tetradrachm (23mm, 16.69 g, 2h). Imitating Athens. Helmeted head of Athena right; Aramaic A on neck guard / Owl standing right, head facing; olive spray and crescent to left; all within incuse square. Cf. Leu 83, lot 246 for similar issue, otherwise unpublished. EF, toned, test cuts. Unusually fine style, good metal. Extremely rare.

It is not uncommon for Aramaic letters to be placed on Athenian imitations from Philistia. Often such letters indicate the issuing city’s ethnic, and a Phoenician aleph appears as such on Athenian-styled coins struck at Ashkelon and Azotos (Ashdod). At the same time, there are Athenian-styled issues that also used such letters where they do not indicate the mint (cf. Gitler & Tal series XI). As none of the published coins of Ashkelon nor Ashdod have their ethnic on the obverse, it would be too speculative to assume the letter here is part of an ethnic, and attribute it to one of those mints. Regardless, Athenian imitations from Philistia are not uncommon, but tetradrachms bearing Phoenician letters on the obverse, as the present piece, are quite rare, with none in Gitler & Tal’s corpus, and only two appearing in CoinArchives, Leu 83, lot 246 (with aleph), and CNG 84, lot 738 (with shin).