Sale: Triton IX, Lot: 592. Estimate $200.  Closing Date: Monday, 9 January 2006.  Sold For $130. This amount does not include the buyer’s fee.

BOIOTIA, Thespiai. Early-mid 4th century BC. AR Obol (0.85 g). Boiotian shield / Two vertical crescents back to back; Q-E-(three-barred sigma)-PI (all but E retrograde) anticlockwise inward around from the top; all within incuse circle. Traité III 361, pl. CCIV, 24 corr. (same rev. die; not the BM example). Good VF, minor porosity, well centered, small edge split. ($200)

There are many different ways the letters were engraved on these reverses; here the Q has always been placed at the top (12 h) regardless of whether it lies outside the crescents (as in this case) or inside one of them. This system of classifying the different varieties was thought more organized in spite of the fact that the crescents will sometimes appear to be with their horns pointing up and down instead of sideways.