Sale: Nomos 3 & 4, Lot: 87. Estimate CHF25000.  Closing Date: Monday, 9 May 2011.  Sold For CHF75000. This amount does not include the buyer’s fee.

EUBOIA, Eretria. After 180 BC. Tetradrachm (Silver, 16.95 g 9). Bust of Artemis to right, her hair tied with a ribbon behind, wearing a necklace, a pendant earring and a chiton, and with her bow and quiver over her left shoulder. Rev. ΕΡΕΤΡΙΕΩΝ / ΦΑΝΙΑΣ Steer standing right, its head, adorned with a taenia, turned towards the viewer; all within laurel wreath. BCD Euboia 340 (this coin) = KF 241 = M. Thompson, The Beginning of the Athenian New Style Coinage, MN 5 (1952), p. 27, 2 and pl. VIII, 4 (this coin). Very rare. With a wonderful bust of Artemis of full Hellenistic style, and on a broad flan. Lightly toned. Extremely fine.

From the Spina collection and that of BCD, ex Lanz 111, 25 November 2002, 340, from the collection of C. Gillet, Bank Leu/Münzen und Medaillen, 28 May 1974, 241, and from the Anthedon Hoard of 1935 (IGCH 223).

A remarkably impressive example of quite how beautiful Hellenistic stephanophoric tetradrachms can be! The bust of Artemis, with her out-of-proportionally large head, is a masterpiece - the coin’s engraver must have believed the coin’s user would have preferred a good look at the goddess’s face! Interestingly enough, the name of the magistrate who signs this coin, Phanias also turns up at Athens at roughly the same time (probably 162/1 = Thompson 9a): it would be intriguing if they were actually the same individual (albeit unlikely).