Sale: CNG 64, Lot: 498. Estimate $1250.  Closing Date: Wednesday, 24 September 2003.  Sold For $1275. This amount does not include the buyer’s fee.

KINGS of PARTHIA. Bagasis. Circa 127-126 BC. AR Tetradrachm (16.00 gm). Seleukeia mint. Diademed bust right / Demeter enthroned left, holding Nike and cornucopiae, nereid supporting throne. Shore -; Sellwood 18.1; Le Rider, Suse pl. lxxi, 1-2. Good VF, scattered reverse porosity, sharp portrait. ($1250)

Dr. Assar has convincingly argued -- based on literary evidence, a number of references on cuneiform tablets, and the hitherto unknown dated type of this series (see Triton V, lot 1575) ­ that this coinage is not an interregnal issue but rather the brief coinage of the elderly King Bagasis, who apparently ruled for only a few months before being succeeded by his younger brother, Artabanos I.