430, Lot: 44. Estimate $200. Sold for $320. This amount does not include the buyer’s fee.

KINGS of MACEDON. Alexander III ‘the Great’. 336-323 BC. AR Drachm (16.5mm, 4.22 g, 1h). Sardes mint. Struck under Menander, circa 324/3 BC. Head of Herakles right, wearing lion skin / Zeus Aëtophoros seated left; monogram in left field, rose below throne. Price 2554; ADM I Series IX, 54b (same dies). Good VF. Very rare, only three noted in ADM, two additional in Pella, and three in CoinArchives, all from the same die pair.

Price 2554 and 2555 are both very rare varieties of the main drachm issue of Price 2553. Unlike Price 2555, all of the known pieces of 2554 are from a single die pair, the obverse of which was used for both varieties. No examples of Price 2554 were present in any of the previous published hoards of Alexander drachms, nor the major mixed-denomination hoards.