Rare Marriage Tetradrachm for Alexander I and Kleopatra Thea

CNG 99, Lot: 339. Estimate $10000. Sold for $25000. This amount does not include the buyer’s fee.

SELEUKID KINGS of SYRIA. Alexander I Balas, with Kleopatra Thea. 152-145 BC. AR Tetradrachm (28mm, 17.04 g, 12h). Marriage Commemorative. Ptolemaïs (Ake) mint. Struck circa 150 BC. Jugate busts of Kleopatra Thea and Alexander I right; Kleopatra is veiled, diademed, and wearing kalathos with a cornucopia behind her shoulder; Alexander is diademed; A to left / [BA]ΣIΛEΩ[Σ AΛ]EΞANΔPOY ΘEOΠATOPOΣ EYEPΓETOY, Zeus Nikephoros enthroned left, holding scepter with his left hand and Nike facing in his right; Nike holds a thunderbolt across her body. SC 1841; Houghton, Double 2 (A1/P1 – this coin); HGC 9, 880. Good VF, toned, light marks and scratches under tone. Very rare.

Ex Baldwin’s 83 (24 September 2013), lot 4094 (realized £8500); Abramowitz Family Collection (Superior, 8 December 1993), lot 344; Bonhams/V. C. Vecchi & Sons 7 (29 March 1982), lot 202 (cover coin).

This rare issue was struck to commemorate the marriage of Alexander I Balas and Kleopatra Thea in 150 BC, a union that politically united the Ptolemaic and Seleukid Empires. Previously thought to be a special emission of the Seleukeia in Pieria mint, based on the imagery of Nike holding a thunderbolt, it is now attributed to the Ptolemaïs (Ake) mint. Arthur Houghton, in his die study published in 1988, recorded 19 specimens struck from three obverse and ten reverse dies, which indicates a short-lived and special coinage.