Sale: CNG 72, Lot: 370. Estimate $200.  Closing Date: Wednesday, 14 June 2006.  Sold For $360. This amount does not include the buyer’s fee.

KINGS of MACEDON. Alexander III ‘the Great’. 336-323 BC. AR Tetradrachm (16.54 g, 1h). Perga mint. Dated CY 27 (195/4 BC). Head of Herakles right, wearing lion skin; c/m TRAL and bowcase in circular incuse / Zeus Aëtophoros seated left; date in left field. Price 2941; Colin Em. 27 (dies 1/3); for countermark: Bauslaugh, "Cistophoric Countermarks and the Monetary System of Eumenes II," NC 1990, p. 42. VF, toned, die shift on reverse.

The TRAL countermark was applied in Tralles, Lydia. Other bow and bowcase countermark on Alexander-type tetradrachms have been attributed to Pergamon, Ephesos, Sardes, Tralles, Laodikeia, and Apameia. Price has linked these counterstamps to the introduction of the cistophoric coinage circa 180 BC. The application of these countermark permitted the circulation of Attic weight coins in the years following the reform.