Very Rare Control Mark for Pantaleon

Triton XXII, Lot: 455. Estimate $1000. Sold for $3750. This amount does not include the buyer’s fee.

BAKTRIA, Greco-Baktrian Kingdom. Pantaleon Soter. Circa 185-180 BC. Cupro-Nickel Double Unit (23mm, 8.16 g, 12h). Draped bust of Dionysos right, wearing tainia and ivy wreath; thyrsos behind / BAΣIΛEYΩΣ above, ΠANTAΛEONTOΣ in exergue, panther standing right on ground line, head facing, wearing bell and with left leg raised; ΦΙ to left. Cf. Bopearachchi 4B; Bopearachchi & Rahman –; cf. SNG ANS 262; cf. MIG Type 160a; HGC 12, 103. EF, a few light cleaning marks, some porosity. Very rare control mark.

From the Menlo Park Collection. Ex Classical Numismatic Group 54 (14 June 2000), lot 947.

Pantaleon, whose portrait coinage in silver is exceptionally rare, also struck coins in cupro-nickel. The only place this metal could have come from is China, where it was known as “white copper.” This points to a flourishing trade between Baktria and China. Pantaleon and his contemporaries Euthydemos II and Agathokles are the only rulers to have struck cupro-nickel coinage until the 20th Century.