Sale: CNG 72, Lot: 82. Estimate $1500.  Closing Date: Wednesday, 14 June 2006.  Sold For $1450. This amount does not include the buyer’s fee.

LUCANIA, Herakleia. Circa 390-340 BC. AR Nomos (7.38 g, 1h). Head of Athena right, wearing Attic helmet decorated with griffin with straight wings / Herakles strangling the Nemean lion; [retrograde EP] and shell to left. Cf. Van Keuren 47 (Skylla on helmet); cf. HN Italy 1376. Good VF, toned, areas of find patina. Apparently unique.

Ex ADM Collection (Numismatica Ars Classica O, 13 May 2004), lot 1090.

The griffin adorns Athena’s helmets on a number of issues from the earlier series at Herakleia (cf. HN Italy 1366-1368), but is unknown thereafter. This unpublished coin is not a hybrid, though, as the earlier forms of the griffin have a distinctly curing wing, unlike this coin where the wing is straight.