Triton XIX, Lot: 2039. Estimate $20000. Sold for $13000. This amount does not include the buyer’s fee.

BOEOTIA, Thebes. Circa 367-362 BC. EL Hemidrachm (12.5mm, 3.02 g, 12h). Bearded head of Dionysos right, wearing ivy wreath / The Herakliskos Drakonopnigon: the Infant Herakles, nude, crouching facing, head left, strangling a serpent in each hand; Θ-E to left; all within incuse square. Gartland 4–5 corr. (O2/R4); BCD Boiotia 470; HGC 4, 1304; SNG Manchester 927 (same dies); Jameson 2063 (same dies); McClean 5581 (same rev. die); Weber 3265 (same dies). VF, toned, a couple light scratches under tone on obverse, minor die shift on reverse. Very rare.

From the collection of Dr. Lawrence A. Adams. Ex Classical Numismatic Group Inventory 717597 (November 1999); BCD Collection (not in prior BCD sales).

S.D. Garland’s study of this unique electrum coinage in NC 2013 does an excellent job challenging the long-standing interpretation of this coinage by B.V. Head, down dating it from circa 395 BC to 367-2 BC, and connecting it to the expansion of Boeotian hegemony in the years following the Battle of Leukra in 371 BC. His die study of the hemidrachm, though, requires a few notable corrections: (1) his reverse dies 4 and 5 are actually the same; (2) the coin recorded by Imhoof-Blumer in 1877, 124, is actually struck from obverse die O2, not O3; and (3) his coins 5a (Weber 3265) and 5c (Jameson 2063) are the same coin (it was sold in Hess-Leu 1957, lot 212).