From the Unique Issue of Antiadas

CNG 105, Lot: 46. Estimate $5000. Sold for $8500. This amount does not include the buyer’s fee.

THRACE, Ainos. Circa 453/2-451/0 BC. AR Tetradrachm (24mm, 16.45 g, 8h). Antiadas, magistrate. Head of Hermes right, wearing petasos with pelleted rim and inscribed AINI / Goat standing right in linear square; ANT-IAΔAΣ around; to right, Pan standing right on base, cradling lagobolon in right arm and raising left hand; all within incuse square. May, Ainos, Group XVI, 89 (A57/P70); AMNG II 279; Kraay & Hirmer 421; Pozzi 1018 = Berlin 11 (same obv. die); Traité IV 1498, pl. 344, 15 (same obv. die). Good VF, toned, minor porosity. Well centered and struck.

Ex Roma IX (22 March 2015), lot 240.

As noted by May, the tetradrachms of his Group XVI are “unique among the coinage of Ainos,” in that the ethnic was moved from the reverse and placed on Hermes’ petasos, while the goat was framed by a linear square around which was placed the name of Antiadas and the figure of Pan. Both the placement of the ethnic on the obverse and the addition of a magistrate’s name and symbol to the reverse are unlike all the other silver tetradrachms of Ainos, before and after, and these innovations were probably influenced by similar tetradrachms issued contemporaneously at the mints of Abdera and Maroneia. It is uncertain why these innovations were not continued in the subsequent series, but perhaps the answer lies in the lengthy pause between the end of the present series, circa 451/0 BC, and the beginning of the subsequent one, circa 435/4 BC. May’s Group XVI coinage is also the only instance where a magistrate’s name is found on the coins of Ainos, and this series is arguably the most intricate of all the profile bust tetradrachm series issued there in the early-mid 5th century.