Sale: Triton VII, Lot: 156. Estimate $20000.  Closing Date: Monday, 12 January 2004.  Sold For $19000. This amount does not include the buyer’s fee.

THRACO-MACEDONIAN TRIBES, Uncertain. Circa 530-480 BC. AR Tetradrachm (15.03 gm). Man-headed goat walking right / Quadripartite incuse. AMNG III -; Svoronos, Primitif -; Traité -; SNG ANS -; SNG Copenhagen -; SNG Ashmolean -; BMC Thrace -; BMC Macedonia -; Weber -; McClean -. Good VF. Unpublished and unique. ($20,000)

This coin represents a completely new, unpublished type in the Thraco-Macedonian series. Doubtless belonging to this series, with a style reminiscent of the staters of the Orrescii or Mygdonii and the heads of satyrs on the archaic coinage of Thasos, it is unprecedented in that the creature has no arms, which is how man-headed creatures always appear in these issues. Obviously the iconography represents some local mythic beast or deity whose identity is as yet unknown.