82, Lot: 9. Estimate $200. Sold for $180. This amount does not include the buyer’s fee.

ELIS, Olympia. Circa 191 BC. AR Achaean Hemidrachm (16mm, 2.18 gm). Laureate head of Zeus right / F A flanking thunderbolt, all within olive wreath. BMC Peloponnesus pg. 73, 139; cf. Seltman, Olympia, pg.74. VF, light porosity with old collection toning. Very rare.

Elis joined the Achaean League in 191 BC, the last Peloponnesian city to do so. According to contemporary accounts Elis were reluctant to abandon their traditional coinage rights, and their earliest issues of Achaean style hemidrachms retained the native types of eagle and thunderbolt; the adoption of the Achaean monogram reverse type came later.