Countermark of Cleopatra?

364, Lot: 302. Estimate $100. Sold for $340. This amount does not include the buyer’s fee.

SYRIA, Seleucis and Pieria. Antioch. Æ Tetrachalkon (23mm, 10.96 g, 12h). Uncertain date, but struck 47-45 BC. Laureate head of Zeus right; c/m: female head (Cleopatra VII?) right within oval incuse / Zeus Nicephorus seated left; thunderbolt above, headdress of Isis to lower left, [date] in exergue. Cf. McAlee 47 and 49; DCA 392; HGC 9, 1367; for c/m: McAlee p. 74, note 25. Host coin Fine, countermark VF.

From the RBW Collection, purchased from Pegasi.

McAlee (p. 74, note 25) notes that tetrachalkoi of this time “... are frequently seen with a countermark on the obverse which was previously described as ‘head of Apollo r. in an oval...it now seems likely that the countermark portrays Cleopatra, and was used to mark coins circulating in the Syro-Phoenician territories which were given to her by Mark Antony.”