Sale: CNG 63, Lot: 199. Estimate $4000.  Closing Date: Wednesday, 21 May 2003.  Sold For $4000. This amount does not include the buyer’s fee.

KINGS of MACEDON. Demetrios Poliorketes. 306-283 BC. AV Stater (8.52 gm). Tarsos mint. Struck circa 298-295 BC. Helmeted head of Athena right, serpent on helmet / Nike standing left, holding wreath and stylis; monogram below left wing, X below right wing. Newell 37; SNG Alpha Bank -; SNG Ashmolean -; AMNG III pg. 180, 1 var. (control marks). Good VF. Very rare. ($4000)

A rare gold stater of the Alexander type struck in the name of Demetrios. Upon the death of Perdikkas in 320 BC, Demetrios' father Antigonos I tried to regain control of Alexander's empire. To this end, Demetrios laid seige to a number of cities. An alliance between Seleukos, Ptolemy, Lysimachos, and Kassander, however, defeated Demetrios and his father in 301 BC at Ipsos. Demetrios soon allied himself with Seleukos, who granted him lands in Cilicia. It was at this time that mints at Tarsos and Salamis in Cyprus began striking Alexander staters in the name of Demetrios as King. In 294 BC, Demetrios lost Cilicia, but regained control of Macedonia, where the minting of his Alexander staters continued until circa 290. In 285, after a futile attempt to recover his father's territories in Asia, he surrendered at last to Seleukos, who hospitably encouraged to once-great general to drink himself to death.