Sale: CNG 67, Lot: 675. Estimate $1000.  Closing Date: Wednesday, 22 September 2004.  Sold For $975. This amount does not include the buyer’s fee.

IONIA, Ephesos (as Arsinoeia). Circa 288-280 BC. AR Octobol (5.51 gm). Bloson, magistrate. Veiled head of Arsinoë right / ARSI, bow and quiver; monogram and BLOSWN to left, bee to right. SNG Kayhan 279; BMC Ionia -; SNG Copenhagen -; Head -. Good VF, toned, struck with a worn obverse die, several small corrosion spots on obverse. Very rare. ($1000)

From the Garth R. Drewry Collection. Ex Classical Numismatic Group 55 (13 September 2000), lot 492 (magistrate incorrect).

Lysimachos made himself master of Ephesos in 295 BC and shortly thereafter changed the city's name to Arsinoeia in honor of his wife, the daughter of Ptolemy I Soter. After the death of Lysimachos in 280 BC, Arsinoë married her half brother Ptolemy Keraunos and finally her full brother Ptolemy II Philadelphos. She became the first Ptolemaic ruler to enter the Egyptian temples as "temple-sharing goddess," and was revered by the later Ptolemies.

This magistrate's name on this and the Kayhan example have the first letter partially obscured. Nevertheless, this name is recorded as a magistrate on the forepart of stag-palm tree coinage of Ephesos in the mid-late 4th century BC (see Waddington 1527 and Pixodarus pg. 204), so the reading here is almost certainly correct and probably names a descendent or other family member of the earlier Bloson.