Sale: Nomos 7, Lot: 80. Estimate CHF25000.  Closing Date: Tuesday, 14 May 2013.  Sold For CHF20000. This amount does not include the buyer’s fee.

AKARNANIA, Federal Coinage (Akarnanian Confederacy). Circa 230 BC. Quarter Stater (Gold, 2.10 g 12), Attic standard. Head of the youthful river-god Acheloos to right; behind, retrograde Ν. Rev. ΑΚΑΡΝΑΝΩΝ Apollo, nude but for drapery over his right leg, seated left on throne, holding bow in his right hand and leaning his left on the side of the throne; in field to left, plow. BCD Akarnania -, but cf. 14 for a quarter stater with a different letter and for references to an Attic standard stater and half-stater with the plow symbol. Cf. De Luynes 1916 (quarter stater with a monogram). Extremely rare, probably unique with this letter and symbol combination. Perhaps the finest example known of this coinage. Extremely fine.

From the Mieza collection, acquired privately.

The exceptionally rare gold coinage of the Akarnanian League is only known from a very few specimens, all from a very limited number of issues struck over a very short time. It is usually dated to c. 250 BC but this actually seems rather unlikely since the Akarnanian League was, in fact, temporarily dissolved c. 250. It seems much more probable that the League’s gold, and much more extensive silver coinage, began c. 230 when the League was reformed with Leukas as its capital and Apollo Aktios its patron.