Sale: Triton IX, Lot: 221. Estimate $500.  Closing Date: Monday, 9 January 2006.  Sold For $950. This amount does not include the buyer’s fee.

BOIOTIA, Orchomenos. Circa 385-375 BC. AR Stater (11.98 g). Boiotian shield / Amphora; EUD above, vertical wheat ear to upper right, E-P across lower field, O-X across the middle; all in concave circle. Head, Boeotia p. 49 = Imhoof-Blumer, Boeotiens, p. 25, pl. I, 83 (same rev. die). Good VF, even grey tone, slight roughness on obverse. Rare. ($500)

Ex Sotheby's London 12 May 1983, lot 183; L. Hamburger 98 (3 April 1933), lot 570.

Orchomenos staters are much more elusive than generally thought, especially in nice condition. This particular one is a variety that seems to be missing from all major references. Hepworth (NomKhron 17 (1998), p. 64, note 24) mentions an "unpublished hoard sold in whole or part by Hamburger in 1933 (98th Auction)" and this coin was part of it. It is dangerous to suggest chronology based on the wear of a single hoard coin but as the hoard was probably concealed around the time of Leuctra (371) we at least have a terminus which, if the wear on this coin is taken into account, could place its minting a few years after the start of the Theban Magistrate staters. The chronology therefore for this and the following three pieces can be refined to "385-375 BC".