Sale: CNG 69, Lot: 133. Estimate $10000.  Closing Date: Wednesday, 8 June 2005.  Sold For $13500. This amount does not include the buyer’s fee.

MACEDON, Philippi. Circa 356-345 BC. AV Stater (8.59 gm, 6h). Attic standard. Head of Herakles right, wearing lion's skin / Tripod; to right, horse's head right. Bellinger, Philippi 15; AMNG III/2, 3 var. (horse's head left); SNG ANS 663 var. (stag's head); SNG Copenhagen 921. Near EF, attractive cabinet tone. Very rare. ($10,000)

Ex Stevenson Collection (Classical Numismatic Group XXVI, 11 June 1993), lot 56; Leu 28 (5-6 May 1981), lot 70; Castro Maya Collection (Borgey, 1957), lot 47.

Until the fifth century BC, the important gold mines of Skapté-Hylé belonged to Thasos, when they were appropriated by Athens. With the collapse of the Athenian empire in the late fifth century, this district reverted to the control of the local people. Around 360 BC, Thasos, at the urging of Athens and backed by an Athenian fleet, mounted a successful offensive and recaptured the mines of Skapté-Hylé, refounding the Thasian city of Daton and renaming it Krenides. In the spring of 356 the Thracian king Kersobleptes prepared to attack Krenides. Athens, involved in the Social War, could not provide help to the colonists of Krenides, so they appealed to Philip of Macedon, who had recently taken possession of Amphipolis, for help. Philip successfully repelled this attack, and recolonized Krenides under the name Philippi, which he strongly fortified and provided many new colonists. Krenides had produced one series of Attic gold staters, with the head of Herakles on the obverse and a tripod on the reverse. This first issue was very distinctive in that the paws of the lion's skin did not cover Herakles' neck. As Philippi, the town continued the production of the staters in two series, the first without the paws covering the neck, the second, from which this coin is a part, with the lion's paws in the more conventional location, closed around the neck. Minted alongside of this stater were also silver tetradrachms of a weight standard conforming with the standard employed by the Chalkidian League, Akanthos and Philip's royal coinage. Gold production at Philippi was short lived as this second series was suspended before the end of the 340's.