ARABIA, Southern. Ma'in (Minaia)(?). Circa 250-150 BC. AR nsf – “Drachm” (13mm, 3.29 g, 12h). Imitating Athens. Good Fine.

CNG Feature Auction 124
Lot: 329. Estimated: $ 500

Greek, 12h, Coin-in-Hand Video, Silver

Sold For $ 2 250. This amount does not include the buyer’s fee.

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ARABIA, Southern. Ma'in (Minaia)(?). Circa 250-150 BC. AR nsf – “Drachm” (13mm, 3.29 g, 12h). Imitating Athens. [Stylized helmeted head of Athena right] / Owl standing right, wings folded; stylized olive spray and crescent to left. Unpublished as a drachm, but cf. M. Huth, “The ‘folded flan’ coinage of eastern Arabia: some preliminary comments” in Arabian Archaeology and Epigraphy 9 (1998), 1–3, for the blṭt (”tetradrachm”) of corresponding to this issue. Toned, struck on a folded flan, minor porosity and flan flaws, struck with worn obverse die. Good Fine. Apparently unique as a drachm.

This fascinating coin is the first drachm-sized denomination of a derivative Athenian series that was struck on a folded flan of another coin. Previously only known in a tetradrachm-sized denomination, the series was originally attributed by Huth (1998) to a mint in eastern Arabia, where all of the six then-extant examples had been found. The discovery of the al-Jawf hoard in 2002, however, definitively changed his view of this intriguing coinage. In his analysis of the hoard (M. Huth, “Monetary Circulation in South West Arabia” in CCK, pp. 85–9), Huth determined that these coins were struck from a single mint, in three phases that employed increasingly simplified methods. In the first phase, the coins were struck on previous tetradrachms that were folded over twice, forming a triangular shaped flan upon which derivative Athenian types were struck. The second phase consisted of coins struck on previous coins that had only been folded over once, forming a semicircular shaped flan. Finally, in the third phase, the host tetradrachms were cut into two halves that were then each folded once, then both halves were placed upon each other and joined by hammering, resulting in a triangular shape. The identification of the undertype used for this series in uncertain. While Huth originally surmised that Alexanders were the common host coin, his analysis of the al-Jawf hoard suggested that this was not likely. Though the question of the undertype remains unresolved, the hoard provided strong evidence that this series was not of eastern Arabian origin, but rather from a mint in the region of Wadi al-Jawf, in the Minaian trading sphere.

The final winners of all CNG Feature Auction 124 lots will be determined during the live online sale that will be held on 19-20 September 2023. This lot is in Session Two, which will begin 19 September at 2 PM ET.

Winning bids are subject to a 22.5% buyer's fee for bids placed on this website and 25% for all others.

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