Sale: Triton IX, Lot: 964. Estimate $2500.  Closing Date: Monday, 9 January 2006.  Sold For $2400. This amount does not include the buyer’s fee.

CARIA, Myalasa(?). Circa 540-535 BC. EL 1/24 Stater (0.58 g). Roaring lion head right / Diagonally divided incuse punch. Tkalec (18 February 2002), lot 65 (same rev. punch), otherwise unpublished. EF, perfectly centered. Extremely rare, possibly the second known. ($2500)

This extremely rare Carian electrum coin was part of a hoard primarily composed of early-style Kroiseids and early Carian staters. First mentioned in Carradice (Hoard 1), the Kroiseids were significantly more worn that the Carian coins, which were practically in mint state (cf. Carradice, pl. X, A, B, and 2-5). Carradice dates the deposit of the hoard to 520 BC, assuming a low chronology for the early-style Kroiseids, but more recent scholarship has proven the high-chronology to be correct, making a deposit more likely in the mid-530s. The Carian coinage present in the hoard was apparently introduced in an attempt to compete with the Kroiseids: their weights are typically slightly heavier than the Kroiseids (c. 0.2 g), their lion-type obverse is copied from the lion half of the Kroiseid type, and their reverse punch with its dividing line simulates that of the Kroiseids. Therefore, considering the condition of the Carian coinage, and that they were issued after the inception of the Kroiseids, an approximate dating of 540-535 BC would be reasonable for their issue.