Numismatically Important

CNG 106, Lot: 465. Estimate $2000. Sold for $3250. This amount does not include the buyer’s fee.

SELEUKID EMPIRE. Antiochos II Theos. 261-246 BC. AV Stater (17.5mm, 8.37 g, 6h). Aï Khanoum mint. Struck circa 261-256 BC. Diademed head of Antiochos I right, with elderly features / Apollo Delphios, testing arrow and holding grounded bow, seated left on omphalos; to inner left, star above arrow, monogram and kithara below. SC 617; SMAK A2A1S-1–3 var. (A1/P– [unlisted rev. die]); HGC 9, 228. VF, test cut on obverse. Numismatically important, the first known of this coinage with a test cut (see below).

In SMAK (pp. 142–3), B. Kritt revisited his discussion regarding the chisel cuts found on so many gold staters from Baktria during the early Diodotid period. He reiterates his argument from his prior work, New Discoveries in Bactrian Numismatics (Lancaster, 2015), that the cuts were part of a program instituted by Euthydemos to validate the acceptance of staters then in circulation in Baktria, since he had immediate financial needs that would take too long to satisfy if he had to recall and restrike the coins in his own types. In this discussion, Kritt notes that there were no staters of Antiochos II type from Aï Khanoum that were known with these chisel cuts, although this coinage was quite vast. According to Kritt, the likely reason for this was that these coins were probably taken out of the country by Seleukid loyalists who fled Baktria when it was lost to the Diodotids during the reign of Antiochos II, thus none were still circulating when Euthydemos had the staters marked with the chisel cuts. As such, the present coin apparently was not removed from Baktria, is the first known example of an Antiochos II stater from Aï Khanoum to have one of the chisel cuts.