Sale: Nomos 6, Lot: 79. Estimate CHF5500.  Closing Date: Monday, 7 May 2012.  Sold For CHF4800. This amount does not include the buyer’s fee.

ARKADIA, Stymphalos. Circa 350 BC. Obol (Silver, 0.92 g 3). Head of Herakles in lionskin headdress to right. Rev. ΣΤΥΜΦΑΛΙΟΝ (retrograde) Head of water bird to right. BCD 1703. SNG Copenhagen 286. Very rare. A very attractive coin with a remarkably detailed bird head on the reverse. Some slight roughness in the die, but, virtually as struck.

From a European collection, acquired before 2009.

Stymphalos produced a remarkable series of silver staters, hemidrachms and obols during the mid 4th century. The staters must have been used for the building expenses of the new city, which replaced the till now undiscovered old city in the 360s; the obols would have been used to pay the workers involved. Very few of those pieces have managed to survive, most being in the BCD collection. This piece is particularly fine.