Sale: CNG 67, Lot: 646. Estimate $3000.  Closing Date: Wednesday, 22 September 2004.  Sold For $2100. This amount does not include the buyer’s fee.

MYSIA, Lampsakos. Circa 450 BC. EL Stater (15.22 gm). Forepart of winged horse left, surrounded by a grapevine / Quadripartite incuse square. Baldwin, Lampsakos I, pl. 1, 10; SNG France 1111; SNG Copenhagen Supp. 305 var. (monogram); SNG von Aulock 1292 var. (same); Boston MFA 1582. VF, a few edge splits. Rare. ($3000)

The earliest electrum coinage of Lampsakos was spurred by the exigencies of the Ionian Revolt of 500-494 BC, when Milesian standard staters were struck. Some fifty year later a new series began, this time on a local standard of about 15.35 grams, apparently to bring them more in line with the popular Kyzikenes. A brief final issue of specially marked staters came around 412 BC, the year of the Delian League uprising against Athens, which Lampsakos had joined. This type, from the middle period, used a local standard and a local type, the winged horse (which is not the Greek Pegasos but an eastern mythological creature) to compete with the Kyzikos staters for Hellespontine commerce.