452, Lot: 282. Estimate $150. Sold for $900. This amount does not include the buyer’s fee.

ISLANDS off ATTICA, Aegina(?). 5th century BC. AR Obol (8mm, 0.82 g, 11h). Sea turtle; uncertain ornaments at sides / Dolphin left within incuse square. Milbank pl. 1, 10; HGC 6, –; BMC 144–5 var. (dolphin right, with ornament); Traité I 1046 var. (same); M&M AG FPL 312 (1970), no. 7 var. (dolphin right); Roma 4, lot 169 var. (same, nor ornaments on obv.). Toned. Fine. Extremely rare.

From the Matthew Curtis Collection.

The attribution of this issue to Aegina is doubtful, not only for the additional ornaments on the obverse, but the iconography of the reverse, neither of which fit into the highly standardized coinage of this city. The dolphin was added to the reverses of the later skew series, but fractions of that series are known; the obverses always feature a tortoise with segmented shell and have a skew type reverse.