Sale: Triton VI, Lot: 258. Estimate $500.  Closing Date: Monday, 13 January 2003.  Sold For $925. This amount does not include the buyer’s fee.

ATTICA, Athens. After 393 BC. AR Tetradrachm (17.05 gm). Helmeted head of Athena right, wearing crested Attic helmet decorated with three olive leaves over visor and a spiral palmette on the bowl / AQE, owl standing right, head facing; olive sprig and crescent behind; all in an incuse square. SNG Copenhagen 63; BMC Attica pg. 13, 129; Svoronos, Athenes pl. 20, 1. Toned, good VF. ($500)

Athens maintained a conservative orientation on its coinage in the interests of commerce. In the decades when remarkable advances were being made in numismatic art, and true Classical masterpieces were coming out of the workshops in Italy and Sicily, the Athenian tetradrachm held tightly to features seen in late archaic art, such as the pupiless frontal eye on Athena, the stiff formalism of the owl, and the large block letters of AQE. Only in the first decade of the 4th century BC do we begin to see a slight shift in style, with the first appearance of a profile eye on Athena, as on this coin. One can note the difference between this tetradrachm and the Syracusan dekadrachm of Euainetos, struck a decade earlier (lot 111). The Athenian tetradrachm's status as an international trade coinage meant that it had to retain its well-recognized style for the assurance of its users. This conservatism, coupled with the social stagnation in Athens after its defeat in the Peloponnesian War, meant there would be no significant change in the coinage until the introduction of the New Style coinage in the 160's.