Gorini Plate Coin
Pedigreed to 1954

CNG 109, Lot: 8. Estimate $5000. Sold for $9000. This amount does not include the buyer’s fee.

LUCANIA, Metapontion. Circa 540-510 BC. AR Nomos (27mm, 7.85 g, 12h). Ear of barley with seven grains; META down left field, grasshopper upward to right / Incuse ear of barley with seven grains; incuse dolphin upward to left. Noe Class V, 104 (same obv. die); Gorini 11 (this coin illustrated, enlarged on p. 137); HN Italy 1472; SNG ANS 207 = Jameson 259 (same obv. die); Gulbenkian 58 = Locker-Lampson 18 (same obv. die); Traité I pl. LXVI, 9 (same obv. die). Good VF, deep cabinet tone, a few scratches, minor die break on obverse. Very rare.

From the Gasvoda Collection. Ex M. L. Collection of Coins of Magna Graecia and Sicily (Numismatica Ars Classica 82, 20 May 2015), lot 12; A. D. Moretti Collection; Classical Numismatic Group 40 (with Numismatica Ars Classica, 4 December 1996), lot 613; Münzen und Medaillen AG XIII (17 June 1954), lot 998.

From the consignor: The most interesting type of the incuse coinage of Metapontum certainly must be the issues which have the locust (or grasshopper) design detail, as here. There are a number of varieties with the locust/grasshopper detail. Here it is paired with a well detailed incuse dolphin. The locust would have been a serious threat to the agricultural community and likely the dolphin relates to Apollo who would have been seen as the God who eliminated a plague of these insects in the year this coin was struck. Exceedingly rare with only two examples in CoinArchives.