Sale: Triton VII, Lot: 243. Estimate $10000.  Closing Date: Monday, 12 January 2004.  Sold For $18000. This amount does not include the buyer’s fee.

IONIA. Uncertain. Circa 650-600 BC. EL Stater (17.60 gm). Samian-Euboeic standard. Blank / Circular incuse with geometric whirl pattern. EF. Unpublished. [See color enlargement on plate 4] ($10,000)

This remarkable circular punch with its geometric pattern reflects the considerable creativity evident in the earliest coins. Among the earliest coinage issues, it is not unusual to find geometric designs in the punches. See, for example, Weidauer 33ff. (the Phanes series), Rosen 258 (horse forepart/floral pattern), SNG Kayhan 697-701 and Classical Numismatic Group 51, lots 429-430 (geometric series). Elaborate geometric punches are particularly prevalent in the coinage of Miletos, whose early coinage is struck with punches bearing geometric designs (cf. SNG Kayhan 440ff).

This piece is distinctive for its elaborate circular shape of its punch without any "obverse" type. At this point in the early development of coinage, it appears that no convention had yet been established that one side or the other was to bear the primary design. Three different punches were employed to strike the coins presented here: one for the stater, one for both hemistaters, and one for the fourrée third stater.