Sale: Triton VIII, Lot: 249. Estimate $10000.  Closing Date: Monday, 10 January 2005.  Sold For $11000. This amount does not include the buyer’s fee.

THRACE, Dikaia. Circa 490-480 BC. AR Distater (19.04 gm). Head of Herakles right, wearing lion's skin headdress / Rough quadripartite incuse square. Schönert-Geiss, Bis. 2 var. (V-/R2; unlisted obverse die); May, Dikaia 14-16 (unlisted dies); Asyut 145 (same dies); BMC Thrace -; SNG Copenhagen -; Traité pl. LVI, 10; HPM pl. 15, 14; Boston MFA Supp. 71 (same dies). Good VF, toned, minor porosity. Wonderful archaic style, and among the finest specimens. Very rare. ($10,000)

From the William and Louise Fielder Collection.

The head of Herakles on this issue is among of the most attractive designs on an archaic coin. Its dramatic features give the whole head a appearance of serenity so characteristic of archaic portraiture. The head has been compared, rightly, to the famous head of the Rampin rider in the Louvre, and certain Attic vases of the painter Andokides.