Sale: Triton IX, Lot: 176. Estimate $100.  Closing Date: Monday, 9 January 2006.  Sold For $220. This amount does not include the buyer’s fee.

BOIOTIA, Mykalessos. Circa 480-450 BC. AR Obol (0.73 g). Boiotian shield / M in incuse rectangle. Lucien de Hirsch 1237. Fair (but clear to the trained eye). Extremely rare, the second known. ($100)

To paraphrase Alan Walker's note for lot 323 in the BCD Olympia auction (Leu 90, 10 May 2004), "This piece has the distinction of quite probably being the poorest quality coin ever to appear in a [CNG] auction (including coins in multiple lots)". It should also be added here that this is a coin which has probably seen centuries of circulation and this fact alone can lead to interesting considerations and conclusions. For instance, the weight loss of this coin is actually quite small if one realizes that a large percentage of the contemporary and later obols of Thebes - with which this coin would be in direct competition - are normally found weighing not much more than three-quarters of a gram. This, in turn, may prompt one to consider the "resistance to wear" properties of globular coins as compared to later ones which are struck in the form of flat discs. Another thing to bear in mind is that archaic Boiotian coins of the type shield/incuse are certainly amongst the most difficult to judge impartially when it comes to describing their condition in an auction catalogue.