Sale: Triton VIII, Lot: 633. Estimate $7500.  Closing Date: Monday, 10 January 2005.  Sold For $12000. This amount does not include the buyer’s fee.

KINGS of BAKTRIA. Agathokles. Circa 185-170 BC. AR Tetradrachm (16.48 gm, 12h). Commemorative issue struck for Alexander III of Macedon. ALEXANDROU TOU FILIPPOU, head of Herakles right, wearing lion's skin headdress / BASILEUONTOS DIKAIOU AGAQOKLEOUS, Zeus seated left, holding eagle in outstretched right hand, sceptre in left; monogram in inner left field. Bopearachchi Série 12B; Bopearachchi & Rahman 163 (same dies); SNG ANS -; MIG Type 142 var. (unlisted monogram); MACW -. VF, toned, minor porosity. Extremely rare. ($7500)

The "pedigree" coins issued by Agathokles copy the coin types of his predecessors, with the predecessor's name and cult epithet on the obverse, and Agathokles' name and titles on the reverse. They are all very rare, and the term "pedigree" coinage implies that Agathokles' intent was to advertise the line of succession from Alexander the Great to himself, presumably as an aspect of his civil war propaganda. The commemorative coins in the name of Alexander the Great are of particular importance to the interpretation of this series, because the first specimen, published in 1881, definitively disproved earlier speculations that all the kings were contemporaries (A. von Sallet, "Alexander der Grosse als Gründer der baktrischen-indischen Reiche," ZfN VIII [1881], pp. 279-80). It is perhaps significant that Alexander alone, of all the kings portrayed in this series, does not have a cult epithet but is merely characterized as "the son of Philip."