Sale: Triton IX, Lot: 724. Estimate $10000.  Closing Date: Monday, 9 January 2006.  Sold For $18000. This amount does not include the buyer’s fee.

MACEDON, Philippi. Circa 356-345 BC. AV Stater (8.60 g, 1h). Attic standard. Head of Herakles right, wearing lion skin headdress / FILIPPWN, tripod; to right, lion head downward. Bellinger, Philippi 17 var. (lion head right); AMNG III -; SNG ANS -; SNG Copenhagen -; Weber 1988 var. (same). EF, light scratch and minor die rust on reverse. Unpublished with lion head facing downward. ($10,000)

The important gold mines of Skapte-Hyle belonged to Thasos until the fifth century BC, when they were appropriated by Athens. With the collapse of the Athenian empire in the late fifth century, this district reverted to the control of the local people. Around 360 BC, Thasos, at the urging of Athens and backed by an Athenian fleet, mounted a successful offensive and recaptured the mines of Skapte-Hyle, refounding the Thasian city of Daton and renaming it Krenides. In the spring of 356 the Thracian king Kersobleptes prepared to attack Krenides. Athens, involved in the Social War, could not provide help to the colonists of Krenides, so they appealed to Philip of Macedon, who had recently taken possession of Amphipolis, for help. Philip successfully repelled Kersobleptes' attack, and recolonized Krenides under the name Philippi, which he strongly fortified and provided many new colonists. Krenides had produced one series of Attic gold staters, with the head of Herakles on the obverse and a tripod on the reverse. That first issue was distinctive in that the paws of the lion's skin did not cover Herakles' neck. As Philippi, the town continued the production of the staters in two series, the first without the paws covering the neck, the second, from which this coin is a part, with the lion's paws in the more conventional location, closed around the neck. Minted alongside this stater were also silver tetradrachms of a weight standard conforming with the standard employed by the Chalkidian League, Akanthos, and Philip's royal coinage. Gold production at Philippi was short lived as this second series was suspended before the end of the 340s.