Triton XVIII, Lot: 1. Estimate $5000. Sold for $3000. This amount does not include the buyer’s fee.

KINGS of THRACE, Macedonian. Lysimachos. 305-281 BC. AR Tetradrachm (28mm, 17.02 g, 12h). Lampsakos mint. Struck 297/6-282/1 BC. Diademed head of the deified Alexander right, with horn of Ammon / BAΣIΛEΩΣ ΛYΣIMAXOY, Athena Nikephoros seated left, left arm resting on shield, transverse spear in background; torch to inner left, star on throne. Thompson 43; Müller 381; SNG France 2538–9; Sunrise 166 (this coin). Near EF, iridescent tone. From artistic dies.

From the Sunrise Collection.

In 2011, Classical Numsmatic Group published The Numismatic Art of Persia: The Sunrise Collection. Part I: Ancient – 650 BC to AD 650. The Sunrise Collection of the coinages of ancient Persia represents one of the finest private collections of this coinage ever compiled, covering all of the numismatically active cultures along the great Silk Road from Asia Minor to China and India. While the core of the collection comprises large sections of Parthian, Persis, and Sasanian coinage, it also incuded selections from the Achaemenids and the Hellenistic empires of Alexander the Great and Seleukos Nikator, whose issues were the first ever struck in Persia, as well as the smaller kingdoms of Charakene and Elymais. The collection also has modest, yet impressive, groups of coins from those culutres that existed on the periphery of Persia–the Kushan Empire, the Indo-Parthians, the Indo-Skythians, Khwarazmia, and the Iranian Huns. All of these cultures were influenced by, and, in turn, influenced, the indigenous Persian groups that were respectively contemporary with them. While coins of most of these series are readily available, the collective quality and rarity here are unprecedented, save for those collections in the greatest public museums. For nearly a half-century, the collector focused on acquiring exceptional specimens for this collection, and his skill in choosing the pieces is self-evident.

CNG is honored to offer here the first portion of this impressive collection, comprising the Achaemenid, Macedonian, Seleukid, Baktrian, and Kushan sections of the book. The collector, ever desirous of making his collection more complete and representative, continued to acquire choice examples since his collection was published, and thus approximately twenty new pieces appear here for the first time. Also, as scholarship never ceases, new publications have resulted in some revisions to the cataloging of certain coins, and there is also the occasional correction made to the original entries in the book. A number of new pedigrees have also been identified and added. Finally, while the coins were presented in a chronological order in the book that allowed scholarly discourses on each section by prominent authorities, the coins are here presented in the traditional format of CNG’s catalogs. All of the following lots are from the Sunrise Collection.