One of Seven

CNG 100, Lot: 57. Estimate $10000. Sold for $12000. This amount does not include the buyer’s fee.

KINGS of MACEDON. Antigonos II Gonatas. 277/6-239 BC. AV Stater (16mm, 8.57 g, 8h). In the types of Alexander III. Pella mint(?). Struck circa 276-275 BC. Head of Athena right, wearing crested Corinthian helmet decorated with serpent, and single-pendant earring / BAΣIΛEΩΣ ANTIΓON[OY], Nike standing left, holding aphlaston in extended right hand and cradling stylis in left arm; wreath below left wing. Panagopoulou 1 (O1/R1); Mathison pl. 21, 35 = Price pl. CLVIII, D = Seltman, Greek, pl. 50, 10; ANMG III/2, 1; De Luynes 1689 (same dies); Hunterian p. 336, 1 (Antigonos I); Prospero 314 = Hunt II 390 (same dies). Good VF, light marks in fields, some die rust. Extremely rare, one of seven published, and one of only two not in a public collection.

From the collection of Dr. Lawrence A. Adams. Ex Classical Numismatic Group 66 (19 May 2004), lot 262.

In 276 BC, Antigonos hired around 7500 Gauls, under the chieftain Biderius, to help in his campaign against Kassander's nephew, Antipater Etesias. According to Polyaenus, these mercenaries cost Antigonos thirty talents. Mathisen suggests that Antigonos struck his Alexander type staters, in Alexander's name and a small issue in his own name, in order to pay this expenditure. In her dissertation on the coinage of Antigonos Gonatas, E. Panagopoulou rejects this theory, noting the unusual replacement of the canonical wreath in Nike’s hand with an aphlaston. This, combined with the use of a wreath as subsidiary symbol, suggests to her that the coins are related to a naval victory; most likely Gonatas’ defeat of the Ptolemaic fleet off Kos (sometime between 262-1 and 255 BC) or the one off Andros (in 246/5 BC). This coin is one of the few surviving examples of this coinage; both Mathison and Panagopoulou could locate only five specimens, all of which are now in museum collections (London [BM], Paris [BN, 2 specimens], Glasgow [Hunterian], and Vienna [KHM]). More recently, this coin and the Prospero piece appeared on the market; they are the first to come to light in over a century.