Sale: Triton IX, Lot: 145. Estimate $150.  Closing Date: Monday, 9 January 2006.  Sold For $90. This amount does not include the buyer’s fee.

BOIOTIA, Federal Coinage. Circa 225-171 BC. Æ 15mm (3.59 g). Boiotian shield, club across one end / Nike standing left, resting on trident and holding patera; BOIWTWN downward on right. Head, Boeotia p. 90, pl. VI, 8 corr. = BMC p. 43, 105, pl. VI, 11 corr. (patera not wreath); Imhoof-Blumer, Boeotiens, 33 (with line drawing); SNG Cop. 394 corr. var. (patera not wreath; club not across shield). VF, brown patina. Extremely rare. ($150)

Apparently the BMC and the Copenhagen coins were not preserved well enough for the cataloguers to notice that the wreath of the silver drachms has become a patera in the bronzes with the same reverses. However, Imhoof-Blumer did notice it and corrected the BM catalogue on p. 13 of his article. It could be that these rare coins were an attempt of the mint to issue a 1 1/2 chalkous coin, the one chalcous being the well known, and extensively circulating for over a century, shield/trident Æ.