Sale: Triton IX, Lot: 602. Estimate $200.  Closing Date: Monday, 9 January 2006.  Sold For $200. This amount does not include the buyer’s fee.

BOIOTIA, Thespiai. Early-mid 4th century BC. Lot of two AR Obols. Both coins: Boiotian shield / Horizontal crescent composed of three lines, facing upward; ethnic above; all within shallow concave circle. Varieties: (a) 0.61 g. Boiotian shield of distinctive "round" shape / Ethnic: QE(three-barred sigma) retrograde. Unpublished variety. Very rare // (b) 0.65 g. Ethnic: QES. Unpublished variety. Very rare and epigraphically important variety confirming that the "sigma" was written in both ways at that time. Coins VF and Near VF, respectively. Two (2) coins in lot. ($200)

(a) Ex Auctiones 24 (23-24 June 1994), lot 201.

Both these coins are fascinating, each in its own way. (a) is obviously the product of an unofficial, to say the least, mint, its weight rather on the light side and both its dies engraved in an awkward, almost incompetent manner. At first glance though it does not appear to be plated or of adulterated silver, as are many of these products. For (b) see Imhoof-Blumer, Münzkunde, p. 341, note 5. Now we can add the obol to his group of Thespiaian silver which feature the "new s" as he calls it. The style of this coin leaves no doubt that it is the product of the official mint and here the engraver has engraved his "sigma" with four strokes. This is further confirmation of Hepworth's very important observation that, at least on coins, there were no delineations between the end of one type of writing and the beginning of another (see Hepworth, Epaminondas, p. 38).