The Rarest of Ptolemy’s Coinage

Triton XIX, Lot: 2076. Estimate $75000. Sold for $120000. This amount does not include the buyer’s fee.

PTOLEMAIC KINGS of EGYPT. Ptolemy I Soter. As satrap, 323-305 BC. AV Stater (16mm, 8.51 g, 12h). Alexandreia mint. Struck circa 312/11 BC. Diademed head of the deified Alexander right, wearing elephant skin and aegis, horn of Ammon over ear / Prow of galley to right, adorned with one large and one small protective eye. Svoronos 25; Zervos Type V, Issue 87 (unlisted dies); Gulbenkian 1071 = Jameson 999; Saida 41. EF, lightly toned, minor marks, a hint of die wear on obverse. Extremely rare, one of five known, and one of only two in private hands (the others in Athens, Lisbon, and Paris).

From the collection of Dr. Lawrence A. Adams. Ex Mieza Collection (Nomos 7, 15 May 2013), lot 149; Numismatica Ars Classica 46 (2 April 2008), lot 303.

In his die study of the early coinage of Ptolemy I, Zervos remarks that this issue is unique among the entire corpus of this king’s coinage due to the lack of any legend or control marks. While he is certain that it was struck by Ptolemy I (W.H. Waddington thought these were non-Ptolemaic imitations), that it was contemporary to the Attic weight silver, and that the mint was likely Alexandreia, he was unable to place it into an historical context that would explain its iconography and purpose. Nonetheless, it is the rarest of all Ptolemy I’s issues, with only five known today, from three obverse and four reverse dies.