Exceptional Emergency Issue

CNG 109, Lot: 126. Estimate $500. Sold for $1900. This amount does not include the buyer’s fee.

ATTICA, Athens. Circa 406/5 BC. Fourrée Tetradrachm (24mm, 16.33 g, 2h). Helmeted head of Athena right, with frontal eye / Owl standing right, head facing; olive sprig and crescent to left; all within incuse square. Kroll, Piraeus 1–2; Kroll pp. 7–8; HGC 4, 1689. EF, plating broken in spots. Exceptional.

In 405 BC, the Athenian playwright Aristophanes wrote The Frogs (οἱ Bάτραχοι), and in 392 BC, he wrote The Assemblywomen (αἱ Ἐκκλησιάζουσαι). Both plays contain pertinent references to the monetary situation in Athens resulting from the Peloponnesian War. In The Frogs, ll. 725-726, the Chorus complains that the current employment of less-than-honorable citizens and foreigners in positions of civic leadership is similar to the city-state's recent use of gold issues and so-called "grievous coppers" (πονήροις χαλκίοις) as currency, and in The Assemblywomen, ll. 815-822, one man complains how a decree of 394 BC, declaring these fourrées suddenly worthless, left him quite literally "holding the bag."

The "grievous coppers" mentioned in Aristophanes were interpreted as official fourrées, struck when the supply of silver was exhausted by 406/5 BC. Numismatists have subsequently attempted to distinguish this specific issue from those fourrées which were fabricated privately. The 1902 discovery of a sizeable hoard of plated tetradrachms and drachms at the Athenian port city of Piraeus provided the largest single piece of evidence in support of the theory that the fourrées Aristophanes mentioned were official issues, and not private fabrications. Re-examining the issue in 1996, John H. Kroll (Essays Oeconomides, pp. 139-42) argued that while the direct evidence was not conclusive that the "grievous coppers" of Aristophanes were "official" fourrées, no plausible alternative hypothesis existed, and that the identification of the 1902 Piraeus Hoard with the emergency coinage struck in 406/5 BC was very persuasive.

The style and fabric of the present coin are identical to other official issues of the late 5th century, apart from the fact that the present coin is plated, and so indicates that this is indeed an official issue.