Issue of Demetrios I with Portrait of Antiochos IV

Triton XXII, Lot: 317. Estimate $3000. Sold for $3500. This amount does not include the buyer’s fee.

SELEUKID EMPIRE. Demetrios I Soter. 162-150 BC. AR Tetradrachm (26.5mm, 16.84 g, 11h). Susa mint. Diademed head of Antiochos IV right / BAΣIΛEΩΣ ΔHM-HTPIOY, Apollo Delphios, nude, testing arrow in his right hand, left hand holding tip of bow set on ground to right, seated left on omphalos; monograms to outer right and in exergue. SC 1710; Le Rider, Suse –; HGC 9, 789 (same dies as illustration); CSE 1066 (same dies). VF, toned, a few marks. Extremely rare, possibly only the second known.

From the MNL Collection. Ex Jencek Historical Enterprise Inventory Y04016 (November 2012); W. K. Raymond Collection.

This must have been the first issue of tetradrachms struck by Demetrios I at Susa, and was apparently struck in urgent circumstances, as the mint reused a die of the previous king, Antiochos IV, rather than cut a new die with Demetrios’ portrait. This obverse die was previously used for Antiochos on tetradrachms of SC 1531 type.