Sale: Triton VIII, Lot: 529. Estimate $2500.  Closing Date: Monday, 10 January 2005.  Sold For $3250. This amount does not include the buyer’s fee.

SELEUKID KINGS of SYRIA. Antiochos II Theos. 261-246 BC. AV Stater (8.52 gm, 12h). Miletos(?) mint. Struck circa 250 BC. Head of Athena right, wearing crested Corinthian helmet decorated with a serpent / ALEXANDROU, Nike standing left, holding wreath in right hand, palm branch in left; monogram in left field. SC 548a = Price 3785 = A. Houghton, "Tarik Darreh (Kangavar) Hoard," ANSMN 25 (1980), 34 (this coin); WSM -; Müller -. Choice EF. Extremely rare, one of only two Alexandrine staters from this issue, and the sole example with this control mark. ($2500)

Ex Classical Numismatic Group 54 (14 June 2000), lot 484; Numismatic Fine Arts II (25-26 March 1976), lot 119; Tarik Darreh Hoard.

The attribution of this piece to Miletos circa 250 BC under Antiochos II is based upon the hoard evidence and the presence of the palm branch, a motif which is present on his coinage of Asia Minor (see SC, pg. 195). The date and location suggest that the occasion for this rare issue was the liberation of Miletos from Ptolemaic authority, the event which prompted Antiochos' assumption of his epithet Theos.