Auction 121 - Session 1
Date: 2022-10-06 00:00:00
Lots: 309
Total starting: $ 0.00
Total realized: $ 0.00 (+0.00%)
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Classical Numismatic Group, LLC - Auction 121 - Session 1 . 295
MYSIA, Kyzikos. Circa 600-550 BC. EL Stater (20.5mm, 16.06 g). Tunny left above tunny right / Quadripartite incuse square. Cf. Hurter & Liewald III 36 (= Von Fritze I 15) for similar fractions with subsidiary symbols; otherwise, unpublished. Edge splits. VF. Very rare. From the Siren Collection.The celebrated electrum coinage of Kyzikos began in the first half of the sixth century, and from the beginning the coinage was notable for the variety and inventiveness of its designs. These staters and fractions were regarded as gold coins and circulated throughout a large area along with the gold darics of the Persian Empire. On all of the coins of Kyzikos, large or small, was engraved the tunny-fish (θυννος), which constituted an important product in the Kyzikene economy. The long awaited corpus initiated by the late Friedrich Bodenstedt is now being continued by Maria Kaiser-Raiss. In the meantime, we must rely on the synthesis of material put together by Hans von Fritze in 1914, augmented (and corrected) by the articles by Sylvia Hurter and Hans-Joachim Liewald. Hurter studied the electrum coinage of Kyzikos for some time before her untimely death in 2008. It was her conviction that the arrangement of the coins by Agnes Baldwin Brett in the catalog of the Boston Museum of Fine Arts was the most accurate to date (reflected in the "Editor's note" at the beginning of the article on the Kyzikene coins in Moscow and St. Petersburg in SNR 2007). Thus, the coinage of Kyzikos below is arranged accordingly.More controversially, Yuri Pokras ("A New Iconography for the Electrum Coins of Kyzikos," The Celator November 2000, pp.18-26) has tried to argue that Athens invested Kyzikos with the status of subsidiary mint, and that the presence of specific types parallels each city-state's inclusion into an alliance with Athens.The orator Aristotelis, in the second century BC, stated the following in his speech regarding the people of Kyzikos: "It is enough for one just to glance at the location and the nature of this city to immediately understand that the name 'blissful' given to it by God was factual, so convenient is its land and its sea. As it is built in front of Asia Minor and since its dominion extends from the Black Sea to the Hellespont, Kyzikos joins the two seas together or rather all the seas that man navigates. Thus, ships continuously pass by or arrive at the harbor or depart from the harbor. Justly it should be called 'blissful' just as is Corinth because, as it is built in the mid part of the seas, it joins, as if it was the center of the world, all men who sail the Mediterranean from Gibraltar to Kolchis at the far side of the Black Sea."
Classical Numismatic Group, LLC - Auction 121 - Session 1 . 296
MYSIA, Kyzikos. Circa 550-450 BC. EL Stater (19.5mm, 16.11 g). Head of lion left; to right, tunny upward / Quadripartite incuse square. Von Fritze I 39; Boston MFA 1414 = Warren 1537; SNG BN 178. Edge splits, minor surface cracks. VF. Well centered. From the Siren Collection.
Classical Numismatic Group, LLC - Auction 121 - Session 1 . 297
MYSIA, Kyzikos. Circa 550-450 BC. EL Hekte – Sixth Stater (9mm, 2.67 g). Forepart of ram left; to right, tunny upward / Quadripartite incuse square. Von Fritze I 39; cf. Boston MFA 1420 (stater); SNG BN –; SNG von Aulock 1175 = Jameson 2166. EF. Well centered and struck. From the North River Collection. Ex Triton XVII (7 January 2014), lot 254.
Classical Numismatic Group, LLC - Auction 121 - Session 1 . 298
MYSIA, Kyzikos. Circa 550-450 BC. EL Stater (20mm, 15.97 g). Head of Acheloös left; to right, tunny upward / Quadripartite incuse square. Hurter & Liewald I 11a = Gulbenkian 607; otherwise, unpublished. Double struck. Near VF. Extremely rare, only four in CoinArchives (Triton XXIV, lot 563; Roma XX, lot 209; Roma XVII, lot 469; and Berk BBS 191, lot 1). Ex Siren Collection.
Classical Numismatic Group, LLC - Auction 121 - Session 1 . 299
MYSIA, Kyzikos. Circa 550-450 BC. EL Stater (18mm, 16.06 g). Facing head of Silenos, with protruding tongue; at sides, two tunnies upward / Quadripartite incuse square. Cf. Von Fritze I 77 (unlisted denomination); cf. Greenwell 45 (same); cf. Boston MFA 1424 = Warren 1465 (hekte); cf. SNG BN 208 (hekte); BMC –; cf. FSD SHM 1193 (hemihekte); Gillet –; Gulbenkian –; Jameson –; Myrmekion –; cf. Rosen 455 (hekte); Weber –; M.J. Price, "1. A Field in Western Thrace" in CH II, 2 = Hess-Divo 325, lot 210 = Sincona 10, lot 113 = Vinchon (24 Nov. 1994), lot 61. In NGC encapsulation 6156324-002, graded AU, Strike: 4/5, Surface: 3/5. Ex Siren Collection (Classical Numismatic Group 117, 19 May 2021), lot 178.
Classical Numismatic Group, LLC - Auction 121 - Session 1 . 300
MYSIA, Kyzikos. Circa 550-450 BC. EL Stater (20mm, 16.07 g). Forepart of winged stag left; to right, tunny diagonally downward left / Quadripartite incuse square. Von Fritze I 102; cf. Greenwell 128 corr. (obv. type; unlisted denomination); Boston MFA 1434 = Warren 1549; SNG BN –; BMC –; FSD –; Gillet –; Gulbenkian –; Jameson 2181; Myrmekion –; Rosen 481; Weber –. Minor edge splits, light mark in obverse field. VF. Well centered. From the Siren Collection.
Classical Numismatic Group, LLC - Auction 121 - Session 1 . 301
MYSIA, Kyzikos. Circa 550-450 BC. EL Stater (20.5mm, 16.13 g). Forepart of winged lioness left; to right, tunny upward / Quadripartite incuse square. Von Fritze I 96; Greenwell 117; cf. Boston MFA 1438 (hekte); SNG BN 237; BMC –; FSD –; Gillet –; Gulbenkian –; Jameson –; Myrmekion –; cf. Rosen 472 (hekte); Weber –. Edge splits. Good VF. Well centered. From the Siren Collection.
Classical Numismatic Group, LLC - Auction 121 - Session 1 . 302
MYSIA, Kyzikos. Circa 550-450 BC. EL Stater (17mm, 16.08 g). Facing gorgoneion, mouth opened and tongue protruding between her teeth, six coiled serpents rising from her head, another two emanating from below her ears; below, tunny left / Quadripartite incuse square. Von Fritze I 129; cf. Greenwell 75 (unlisted denomination); Boston MFA 1445 = Warren 1492; SNG BN –; BMC –; FSD –; Gillet 1085; Gulbenkian –; Jameson 2191 = Weber 4972; Myrmekion –; Rosen –. Minor die rust. Good VF. From the Siren Collection.
Classical Numismatic Group, LLC - Auction 121 - Session 1 . 303
MYSIA, Kyzikos. Circa 550-450 BC. EL Hekte –Sixth Stater (11.5mm, 2.68 g). Herakles, holding club overhead in right hand and bow in left, in kneeling-running stance right; to left, tunny upward / Quadripartite incuse square. Von Fritze I 107; Greenwell 65; Boston MFA 1463; SNG BN 249 = de Luynes 2440; BMC –; FSD –; Gulbenkian –; Jameson –; Rosen –; cf.Weber 4979 (stater). Some very light marks. Good VF. Well centered on a broad flan. Very rare as a hekte, only two in CoinArchives.
Classical Numismatic Group, LLC - Auction 121 - Session 1 . 304
MYSIA, Kyzikos. Circa 550-450 BC. EL Stater (21mm, 15.86 g). Wolf at bay left, raising right forepaw, on tunny left / Quadripartite incuse square. Von Fritze I 93; Greenwell 138; Boston MFA 1469 = Warren 1564; SNG BN 230; cf. BMC 91–2 (hektai); Gillet –; Gulbenkian 624; cf. Jameson 1406 (hekte); Myrmekion –; Rosen –; Weber –. Edge splits. VF. From the Siren Collection.
Classical Numismatic Group, LLC - Auction 121 - Session 1 . 305
MYSIA, Kyzikos. Circa 550-450 BC. EL Stater (19.5mm, 15.86 g). Nude male kneeling left, holding in his extended right hand a tunny fish by the tail / Quadripartite incuse square. Von Fritze I 112; Greenwell 86; Boston MFA 1487 = Warren 1502; SNG BN 253; BMC –; FSD –; Gillet –; Gulbenkian –; Jameson –; Myrmekion –; cf. Rosen 488 (hekte); Weber –. Toned, edge splits, slightly off center on obverse. VF. From the Siren Collection.
Classical Numismatic Group, LLC - Auction 121 - Session 1 . 306
MYSIA, Lampsakos. Circa 394-350 BC. AV Stater (16.5mm, 8.39 g, 11h). Head of female left, wearing triple-pendant earring and necklace / Forepart of Pegasos flying right within shallow incuse square. Baldwin, Lampsakos 27; SNG BN 1156 = Traité II 2565 (same obv. die); G.F. Hill, "Greek coins acquired by the British Museum in 1919," NC 1920, p. 111 and pl. XIV, 6 = Weber 5102 (same obv. die). Underlying luster. Good VF. Struck from artistic dies. Extremely rare, one of only three known, the other two in museum collections (the BN and BM). From the Father & Son Collection. Ex Jonathan P. Rosen Collection (Triton XXIII, 14 January 2020), lot 318; Roma XIII (23 March 2017), lot 291; Triton X (9 January 2007), lot 273.Both the BN and BM specimens are struck from the same die pair. The present coin adds a new reverse die to the corpus.Lampsakos depended upon the traffic between the Aegean and the Black Sea, and possessed an excellent harbor in a strategic position guarding the eastern entrance to the Hellespont opposite Gallipolis. The city was known to have existed under the name of Pityusa before it received colonists from the Ionian cities of Phokaia and Miletos (Strabo xiii, p. 589). In the sixth and fifth centuries Lampsakos passed successively under Lydian, Persian, Athenian, and Spartan control. Its tribute of twelve talents, as a member of the Delian League, and production of electrum staters in the fifth century, attest to its commercial wealth. Following the example and standard of the Persic daric, Lampsakos was the first Greek city to make regular issues of gold coinage, which enjoyed an international circulation from Sicily to the Black Sea. As at Kyzikos, the quality of engraving was very high, and types changed frequently: approximately forty types were produced in a period of about sixty years. Many of the types contemporary with the present coin feature chthonic deities, those whose powers came from the earth, such as Demeter and Dionysos. The female on the obverse of this coin, though, does not have any characteristics that identify her as a particular deity, and she may simply be the representation of a nymph in the local folklore.
Classical Numismatic Group, LLC - Auction 121 - Session 1 . 307
KINGS of PERGAMON. Eumenes I. 263-241 BC. AR Tetradrachm (29mm, 16.97 g, 1h). In the name of Philetairos. Pergamon mint. Struck circa 263-255/0 BC. Head of Philetairos right, wearing laurel wreath / ΦIΛETAIPOY, Athena enthroned left, right hand resting on shield set at her feet, left elbow resting on small sphinx seated right; transverse spear in background, ivy leaf above knee, monogram on throne, bow to right. Westermark Group III, obv. die V.XXIV; SNG BN 1607; SNG Ashmolean 752; SNG Copenhagen 334; BMC 34; Bement 1390; Hermitage Sale I 282; Jameson 1449 = Rhousopoulos 3336 (all above from the same obv. die); Triton XXI, lot 460 (same dies). Toned, slight die shift and light marks on reverse. Choice EF. Well struck from fresh dies with high relief and exceptional detail. Ex Triton XXIII (14 January 2020), lot 321 (hammer $4750).
Classical Numismatic Group, LLC - Auction 121 - Session 1 . 308
KINGS of PERGAMON. Eumenes I. 263-241 BC. AR Tetradrachm (31mm, 17.01 g, 12h). In the name of Philetairos. Pergamon mint. Struck circa 255/50-241 BC. Head of Philetairos right, wearing laurel wreath / Athena enthroned left, elbow resting on shield to right, crowning dynastic name with wreath; transverse spear in background, ivy leaf to outer left, monogram to inner left, bow to right. Westermark Group IVA, obv. die XLIX; SNG BN 1610 (same obv. die). Lightly toned, minor marks. EF. Well centered.
Classical Numismatic Group, LLC - Auction 121 - Session 1 . 309
KINGS of PERGAMON. Attalos I. 241-197 BC. AR Tetradrachm (27mm, 16.96 g, 12h). In the name of Philetairos. Pergamon mint. Struck circa 241-235 BC. Laureate head of Philetairos right / ΦIΛETAIPOY, Athena enthroned left, left elbow resting on shield to right, crowning dynastic name with wreath held in her extended right hand; spear in background, palm frond to outer left, monogram to inner left, bow to right. Westermark Group VI:A, dies V.LXXXIX/R.3; F. Imhoof-Blumer, Die Münzen der Dynastie von Pergamon (1884), 19 (same obv. die); SNG BN 1621; SNG von Aulock –; SNG Copenhagen –; BMC 39; Boston MFA 1615 = Warren 1031; Pozzi 2255. Lightly toned, traces of find patina. EF. Powerful portrait. From the Father & Son Collection, purchased from ArtAncient. Ex Numismatic Fine Arts VI (27 February 1979), lot 264; Leu 13 (29 April 1975), lot 204.