Triton XVIII, Lot: 87. Estimate $5000. Sold for $7500. This amount does not include the buyer’s fee.

CILICIA, Tarsos. Mazaios. Satrap of Cilicia, 361/0-334 BC. AR Stater (23mm, 10.81 g, 7h). Baaltars seated left, his torso facing, holding lotus-tipped scepter in extended right hand, left hand holding chlamys at his waist; thymiaterion surmounted by eagle to left, barley grain below throne, B’LTRZ (in Aramaic) to right / Lion walking left; Z (in Phoenician[?]) above. Casabonne Series 5, Group E; SNG France –; SNG Levante Supp. 28 (Myriandros); Sunrise 60 corr. (mint; this coin). EF, toned, some die wear on obverse. Well centered on a broad flan.

From the Sunrise Collection, purchased from Kirk Davis, December 2000.

The attribution of the walking-lion series of Mazaios had originally been given to the mint of Tarsos, but Newell argued that they more likely were struck at Myriandros in his study of that mint in AJN 53 (1919). Later, J.D. Bing, in AJN 1 (1989), argued for an alternative attribution of the Myriandros coinage to the mint of Issos. While most numismatic works continue to follow Newell, Casabonne’s significant study of Cilicia during the Persian period convincingly returns these coins of Mazaios to the mint of Tarsos (cf. Casabonne, pp. 215–7).