Sale: CNG 66, Lot: 643. Estimate $1500.  Closing Date: Wednesday, 19 May 2004.  Sold For $1050. This amount does not include the buyer’s fee.

ISLANDS off CILICIA, Elaiussa Sebaste. Circa 94-83 BC. AR Tetradrachm (15.61 gm). Turreted and veiled bust of Tyche right / Aphrodite standing left, holding tiller(?); monogram and aplustre to outer left, ISI to inner left; all within wreath. Houghton & Bendall Group 2, 3 var. (A2/P-; unlisted reverse die); SNG Levante Supp. 221 (this coin); cf. SNG France 1152; SNG von Aulock -. Toned VF, lightly porous, small scuff behind head on obverse. Extremely rare. ($1500)

Ex Lanz 50 (27 November 1989), lot 453.

Seven tetradrachms of Elaiussa are apparently known: Paris, Bibliothèque Nationale; Washington, Smithsonian (broken); London, British Museum; CNG 36, lot 2037; CNG 45, lot 475; Triton VI, lot 441 = Tkalec and Rauch (16-17 November 1987), lot 141, and the present specimen, which is published in the SNG Levante Supplement. The issue is to be dated after circa 95-94 BC, when Seleukos VI struck coins at Elaiussa, but before 83 BC, when Tigranes extinguished the city’s independent existence. Elaiussa was an island in antiquity but is now joined to the mainland.