CNG 102, Lot: 110. Estimate $2000. Sold for $1500. This amount does not include the buyer’s fee.

SICILY, Leontini. Circa 425-420 BC. AR Tetradrachm (26mm, 17.25 g, 6h). Laureate head of Apollo right / Head of roaring lion right; three barley grains around, mullet (chelon labrosus) below. Boehringer, Münzgeschichte 62 var. (same dies, but before olive spray was added to obverse); SNG ANS 253 corr. (same obv. die; probably not tooled to remove olive spray); Basel 354 var. (same dies; same); Gillet 652 var. (same dies; same). Good VF, toned, hairline flan crack. Rare without olive spray on obverse.

From the estate of Thomas Bentley Cederlind. Ex G. Hirsch 275 (22 September 2011), lot 3221; Numismatica Ars Classica I (19 May 1999), lot 1162; G. Hirsch 194 (19 February 1997), lot 86; Numismatica Ars Classica Autumn Sale (26 October 1995), lot 122.

Almost all examples from this obverse die have an olive spray behind the neck of Apollo. The cataloger of the ANS collection, seeing the clear tooling in Apollo’s hair, rightly noted that their coin was tooled, but assumed that the olive spray was also removed in this process. The present coin, though, which is well struck in this area of the die, clearly shows that it was not originally present in the die, but rather a latter addition. Thus, the ANS coin may also be a rare example of this issue without the olive spray.