Search


CNG Bidding Platform

Information

Products and Services



Research Coins: Feature Auction

 
CNG 100, Lot: 237. Estimate $2000.
Sold for $18000. This amount does not include the buyer’s fee.

KINGS of BOSPORUS. Uncertain ruler. 9/8 BC-AD 9/10. AV Stater (20mm, 7.90 g, 11h). Dated Bosporan Era 307 (AD 10/11). Bare head of Augustus left / Bare head of Agrippa right; monogram to left, ZT (date) below. Frolova & Ireland § 10, p. 64 and pl. XLI, 1 = Bertier, Monetach 46 (this coin cited and illustrated, in both); Anokhin 288; MacDonald 265; RPC I 1879. Good VF, a number of scratches, a few edge marks from possible mounting, reverse struck somewhat off center.


From the collection of Dr. Lawrence A. Adams. Ex V. Adda Collection (Christie’s, 9 October 1984), lot 235, for a hammer of £800; Grand Duke George Mikhailovich Collection.

The specimen illustrated in Frolova & Ireland matches this piece nearly perfectly, except for the continuation of the circular border on the reverse, which, in the plate, appears to terminate at the base of the ‘T’ in the date. This image was derived from the coin plated in Général A.L. Bertier’s article “О монетахъ властителей Боспора Киммерийкаго, опреде ляемыхъ монограммами,” in Записки Одесского общества истории и древностей XXIX (Proceedings of the Odessa Society for History and Antiquity), which is listed as being in the collection of Grand Duke Mikhailovich. Since plates at that time were generally produced from casts of the coins, it is highly likely that minor edge characteristics would not be reproduced from the cast, leaving a slight difference from the original piece. Given the overwhelming similarity in the position of the strike on each side, it is all but certain that this example pedigrees to the Russian noble, a first cousin of Emperor Aleksandr III.