Extremely Rare Kleopatra Thea Gold
Ex Athena Fund and Houghton Collections

Triton XIX, Lot: 2072. Estimate $20000. Sold for $75000. This amount does not include the buyer’s fee.

SELEUKID EMPIRE. Kleopatra Thea. As wife of Alexander I Balas, 152-145 BC. AV Stater (18.5mm, 8.54 g, 1h). Ptolemaïs (Ake) mint. Special marriage issue, 150 BC. Diademed and veiled bust right, wearing stephanos and single-pendant earring / BAΣIΛIΣΣHΣ KΛEOΠATPAΣ, filleted double cornucopia. SC 1840 (this coin referenced and illustrated); HGC 9, 871 (this coin illustrated); Athena Fund 69 = CSE 408 = A. Houghton, “The Double Portrait Coins of Alexander I Balas and Cleopatra Thea” in SNR 72 (1988), 1 (this coin). VF, a couple light marks, slightly flat at high point of reverse. Extremely rare, one of two published (SC one in Aleppo).

From the collection of Dr. Lawrence A. Adams. Ex Athena Fund (Part 1, Sotheby’s Zurich, 26 October 1993), lot 69; Numismatic Fine Arts XXVII (4 December 1991), lot 74; Arthur Houghton Collection (Numismatic Fine Arts XVIII, 31 March 1987), lot 355.