Rarely Depicted Skate

Sale: Triton X, Lot: 250. Estimate $500.  Closing Date: Monday, 8 January 2007.  Sold For $625. This amount does not include the buyer’s fee.

ISLANDS off ELIS, Kephallenia. C. Proculeius L.f. Circa 30-28 BC. Æ 22mm (5.81 g, 9h). Terminal bust of Jupiter right; monogram to left / Skate fish; [C PROCVLEI L F below]. RPC I 1359 (town of Kephallenia); SNG Copenhagen -; BMC 65 (Kranion); Winterthur 2185-6 (Isle of Kephallenia). VF, dark green patina, smoothed. Very rare.

Ex David Freedman Collection (Triton V, 15 January 2002), lot 383.

RPC, echoing Grueber and Bahrfeldt (who later recanted), tentatively places this issue at the “town of Cephallenia.” This cannot be correct, for there was no town of this name on the island. Thus, if they are reading the monogram correctly, it must relate to the island as a whole. Otherwise, the earlier attribution to Kranion, or M. Grant’s reading of Ithaca, may be correct. In this cataloguer’s opinion, the monogram of this type is not so far removed from that on the issues RPC ascribes to Kranion with certainty (cf. RPC 1360-1).