Clarifying an Enigmatic Issue

345, Lot: 181. Estimate $100. Sold for $220. This amount does not include the buyer’s fee.

KINGS of MACEDON. temp. Philip III – Lysimachos. Circa 323-280 BC. AR Obol (8mm, 0.56 g, 1h). Uncertain mint in Thrace or Asia Minor. Head of Herakles right, wearing lion skin / Zeus Aëtophoros seated left; in left field, two horse foreparts conjoined at their truncation; P below throne. Price 3871 corr. (not Susa). VF, toned, light porosity. Extremely rare.

From the Patrick H. James Collection.

The Hersh coin cited by Price for his 3871 is now in the BM: 2002,0101.953. That coin is poorly struck, but one can see the right side horse. This confirms that it is not an issue of Susa, and thus SC 194 ("attribution doubtful [possibly barbarous]") is correct in suspecting that the issue is not Seleukid. This obol issue is not otherwise known, but the style is consistent with Price 3064 (and probably also 3065), which are tetradrachms with this same left field control mark. This control mark was used on civic issues of Perinthos, which led Thompson (Newell) to assign coins of Lysimachos with it to this mint, though hesitatingly. In her study on the mint of Perinthos, Schönert-Geiss notes that it the city had a mint under Alexander and Lysimachos (p. 4), and that these tetradrachm issues were expressly from that mint, as this symbol was representative of Perinthos (p. 14). No other cities seems to have used this particular symbol as a badge. Unfortunately, there is little hoard evidence to support an attribution to any mint at this time, but Price’s placement of these under Southern Asia Minor is speculative.