Ex Brand and Weber

Triton XVIII, Lot: 431. Estimate $3000. Sold for $5000. This amount does not include the buyer’s fee.

THRACO-MACEDONIAN REGION, Uncertain. Circa 520-500 BC. AR Tetrobol (11.5mm, 2.47 g). Grape bunch / Quadripartite incuse square. Artemis-Gyselen Class 2, v = Weber 4729 (this coin); SNG Copenhagen 766–7; Boston MFA 1295 = Warren 970; Jameson 1310; Pozzi 2057–60 (all cataloged as Tenos). Good VF, attractively toned. Good metal.

From the RAJ Collection. Ex Classical Numismatic Group 72 (14 June 2006), lot 686; Virgil Brand Collection (Part V, Sotheby's, 1 February 1984), lot 167; Sir Hermann Weber Collection, 4729.

This tetrobol is part of a series that was traditionally placed at Cycladic Tenos, based on a stylistic argument by F. Imhoof-Blumer, who compared the grape bunch on these to later Hellenistic issues bearing that city’s ethnic. Sheedy, however, convincingly showed that these coins cannot belong at Tenos. He argued that the style of the grapes was common at a number of mints, even outside the Cyclades, but, moreover, the metrology of these coins did not fit any weight standard used in the islands (cf. Sheedy, pp. 72–4 and HGC 6, p. 178).