Sale: Triton IX, Lot: 6. Estimate $300.  Closing Date: Monday, 9 January 2006.  Sold For $450. This amount does not include the buyer’s fee.

BOIOTIA, Federal Coinage. 395-387 BC. AR Stater (12.10 g). Boiotian shield / Amphora; above, bow and arrow pointing upward; BO-IW across field; all within incuse concave circle. Head, Boeotia p. 77; Myron Hoard pl. ST, 6; BMC p. 36, 46; SNG Fitzwilliam 2958; L. Hamburger 98 (3 April 1933), lot 649 (same obv. die). VF, lightly toned, die flaws on obverse, graffito (D I I) in field on reverse, slight die shift on reverse. ($300)

The graffito means that this coin was dedicated to Zeus, D I I being the votive case for ZEUS in ancient Greek.

Recent scholarship has suggested that the dating of this series should be put back from Head's 338-315 but not as far back as 395-387 BC. It is however the opinion of this writer that these coins were struck during the Corinthian war and that the issue was discontinued after the Peace of Antalkidas. This opinion is supported up to a point by the overcut reverse die of lot 496 of this catalogue on a reverse die of the BO-IW series. The Theban magistrate FASTIAS struck staters with his name not later than 383 BC (see Hepworth, Epaminondas, p. 38), and the two types of coins circulated, and are found together in hoards, well into the first half of the 4th century.