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Auction: 23007 - Ancient Coins Including the 'Kyrios' Collection of Greek Coins and featuring the 'Ostorius' Collection of Roman Gold
Lot: 43

The 'Kyrios' Collection | Kingdom of Macedon, Alexander III, 'the Great' (336-323 BC), AV Distater, Aegaea, head of Athena right, wearing triple-crested Corinthian helmet decorated with coiled serpent, hair flowing, with pendant earring, rev. ALEXANDROY Nike standing left, holding a wreath in right hand on ship's mast, vertical fulmen in her left, young athlete/pankratiast left to left field with both arms raised, L-O monogram to lower left, 3h, 17.19g (Price 196; Mueller 639; Noe, Sicyon 9; Lacroix [Revue Belge, 1964], pp. 52, Pl. II, no. 5), beautifully struck and well-centred, lustrous and detailed, some slight deposits but otherwise good very fine or better, extremely rare

PROVENANCE

Spink 200, 1 October 2009 lot 838, 'very fine and extremely rare' - £11,000

Belgravia Auction Gallery, Malta, 1 July 2009, lot 1133 [unsold], purchased by private treaty, 2 July 2009 - £2,240

From the collection of a Scottish sea captain


Alexander's distater coinage provides lasting testament to the sheer volume of gold plundered during his Persian campaigns. Utilised to pay veteran soldiers following a long deployment, the exceptional weight of the distater allowed Alexander to pay a full talent to his troops with 120 distaters.


Due to the relatively scant research done in the minting of Alexander's distaters, chronology and location are difficult to determine, and this is particularly so in the case of our example, with its jumping figure in the left field. Noe believed that the location of the mint was almost certainly in Sicyon, owing to Even the identification of this device has proved controversial. S. P. Noe referred to the figure as a 'youthful figure', While Martin J. Price referred to one such example as 'either an orator or actor', Milavic (2001) notes that this not not possibly true, given that the figure is nude, and only Greek gymnasts would perform nude.




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Sold for
£28,000

Starting price
£10000