Sale: Triton IX, Lot: 254. Estimate $10000.  Closing Date: Monday, 9 January 2006.  Sold For $18000. This amount does not include the buyer’s fee.

BOIOTIA, Tanagra. 457-448 BC. AR Stater (12.45 g). Boiotian shield, its rim divided into 12 segments / Forepart of bridled horse right; T-A-N-A anticlockwise around from top right; all within incuse square. Head, Boeotia p. 27; Traité I 1373, pl. XLI, 28; Locker Lampson 198 = Weber 3228 (this coin). EF, perfectly centered, wonderful cabinet tone, traces of green iridescence on the obverse, even layer of find patina on the reverse. Extremely rare variety, probably the second known of this type. ($10,000)

Ex Münzen und Medaillen 61 (7 October 1982), lot 118; Comte Chandon de Briailles Collection (Bourgey 17 June 1959), lot 322; G. Locker Lampson Collection, 198; Sir Hermann Weber Collection, 3228.

This is the earliest issue of the series and with the style still clearly archaic and the fabric earlier than the Theban mythological reverses, it was probably Tanagra that led the way into the next stage of Boiotian coinages.