CNG 102, Lot: 547. Estimate $1000. Sold for $750. This amount does not include the buyer’s fee.

DYNASTS of LYCIA. Vekhssere II. Circa 410/00-390/80 BC. AR Third Stater (17mm, 2.85 g, 10h). Zagaba mint. Lion scalp facing / Head of Athena facing slightly left, wearing triple-crested Attic helmet; ZAGABAH (in Lycian) to left; all within incuse circle. Falghera –; Reuter 128; Podalia 14 corr. (A2/P2; Zagaba not a dynast) = Boston MFA Supp. 220 = Hess-Leu (2 April 1958), lot 226; SNG Copenhagen Supp. 469 var. (monogram to right). Good VF, die break on reverse. Exceptional style.

There has been long debate about whether Zagaba was a place or a person, but more recent research has conclusively shown that it is, in fact, a city, not a dynast (cf. A.G. Keen, Dynastic Lycia: A Political History of the Lycians & Their Relations with Foreign Powers, c. 545-362 BC [Leiden: Brill, 1998], pp. 54–5 and 109). The absence of a dynast’s name here suggests that this issue might be a civic, rather than dynastic (cf. Keen, op cit., p. 54, and Reuter 128 note). Coins with similar types as this issue, however, are known in the name of Vekhessere II (cf. Falghera 186 and Podalia 1–7).