Extremely Rare Poliorketes Stater
Ex Stevenson Collection

CNG 100, Lot: 56. Estimate $10000. Sold for $13000. This amount does not include the buyer’s fee.

KINGS of MACEDON. Demetrios I Poliorketes. 306-283 BC. AV Stater (19mm, 8.51 g, 6h). Pella mint. Struck circa 289-288 BC. Diademed and horned head right / BAΣIΛEΩΣ ΔHMHTPIOY, warrior, wearing mantle, kausia, and anaxyrides, and holding a long couched spear with his right hand, on horse rearing right; monogram below horse's forelegs. Newell 87 (unlisted dies); BM Museum Number BNK,G.1035. Good VF, rough and porous surfaces. Extremely rare, none in CoinArchives.

From the collection of Dr. Lawrence A. Adams. Ex Robert Weimer Collection (Triton IV, 5 December 2000), lot 176; George & Robert Stevenson Collection (Classical Numismatic Group XXVI, 11 June 1993), lot 71; Numismatic Fine Arts X, (17 September 1981) lot 119.

Demetrios' gold coinage consists entirely of Attic-weight staters, issued at first in the name of Alexander, but after circa 299 in his own name. Demetrios' proclamation as king of Macedon gave him control of the mints in Amphipolis and Pella, and he inherited the vast bullion supplies of Macedon. In order to finance further conquests, he began to turn these supplies into currency. This coin was struck in the last year of Demetrios' reign, probably to finance his planned Aitolian campaign. The obverse shows the portrait of Demetrios adorned with the horns of a bull, the sacred animal of Poseidon. The reverse pays tribute to a traditional Macedonian type that had been used on the silver coinages from Alexander I to Philip II.