Sale: CNG 66, Lot: 446. Estimate $50000.  Closing Date: Wednesday, 19 May 2004.  Sold For $56000. This amount does not include the buyer’s fee.

IONIA, Ephesos. Circa 620-600 BC. EL Trite (4.72 gm). FANEOS retrograde, stag grazing right, its dappled coat indicated by indentations on the body / Two incuse punches, each with raised intersecting lines. Kraay, ACGC 54 = Weidauer 40 (British Museum Collection; E.S.G. Robinson, BMQ 15, 1952, pg. 48ff, and E.S.G. Robinson, ANS Centennial Publication, 1958, pg. 56, pl. 39, 3); SNG Munich 14; Tkalec Auction (19 February 2001), lot 116 (same obverse die and reverse punches); cf. Boston MFA 1816 = Weidauer 37 (Hemihekte with same punch); cf. Tkalec Auction (29 February 2000), lot 114 (stater with two outer punches identical). Good VF. ($50,000)

The celebrated coins of Phanes are known to be amongst the earliest of Greek coins, for a hemihekte of the issue was found in the famous foundation deposit of the temple of Artemis at Ephesos. It is this find spot, along with the design of the grazing stag (an animal associated with Artemis), that has suggested Ephesos as the mint. The use of a personal name at this early point in the development of coinage is instructive. We know from these coins that the responsibility for the issue was personal ­ whether the issuer was an official or a private individual ­ rather than collective (the citizenry as a whole).

This is the seventh known coin to bear the name of Phanes. Three staters carry the legend Faenos emi shma (“I am the badge of Phanes”), and four trites (third staters) bear the name Faenos (“Phanes”). The last trite to be offered, the only other example in private hands, fetched SF80,000 in the 2001 Tkalec auction.