Sale: Triton VIII, Lot: 135. Estimate $7500.  Closing Date: Monday, 10 January 2005.  Sold For $4500. This amount does not include the buyer’s fee.

KINGS of MACEDON. Alexander I. 498-454 BC. AR Oktadrachm (28.22 gm, 10h). Struck circa 465-460 BC. Horseman, wearing chlamys and petasos, and holding two spears, leading horse right; crescent behind horseman's head / ALE-XA-ND-RO around quadripartite square, all within larger incuse square. Raymond Group II 54 var. (OP15/A-; unlisted reverse die); AMNG III -; HPM pl. XIII, 9; SNG ANS 23; SNG Alpha Bank -; McClean 3274 (same obverse die). VF, toned, slight roughness. Well struck on a broad flan. Rare. ($7500)

From the William and Louise Fielder Collection.

Raymond notes that only about a third of the known oktadrachms exhibit the crescent, which she believes is a slight directed at the Athenians. In 465 BC the Athenians, after conquering Enna Hodoi, moved inland but were defeated by the Thracians, in alliance with Alexander, at Edonian Drabeskos. Alexander's addition of the crescent to his coins mimics the Athenians' use of the symbol on their tetradrachms to mark their defeat of the Persians.

See lot 129 for more information on early Macedonian kingdom and its coinage.