86, Lot: 40. Estimate $200. Sold for $211. This amount does not include the buyer’s fee.

PAMPHYLIA, Side. Circa 3rd-2nd Century BC. AR Tetradrachm (31mm, 15.98 gm). Head of Athena right, wearing crested Corinthian helmet; c/m: EFE and bow in bow-case within circular incuse / Nike advancing left, holding wreath; pomegranate to left, XPY (magistrate) in left field. For undertype: SNG France 702; BMC Lycia, etc. pg. 149, 51; for countermark: cf. R. Bauslaugh, "Cistophoric Countermarks and the monetary system of Eumenes II," in NumChron 1990, pg. 42, pl. 4, 4. Coin VF, c/m near VF.

The EFE counterstamp was applied at Ephesos. Other bow and bow-case counterstamps on Alexander-type tetradrachms and Side tetradrachms, with different legends, have been attributed to Adramyttion, Sardes, Tralles, Laodicea, Pergamon and Apamea. Price has linked these counterstamps to the introduction of the cistophoric coinage circa 180 BC, and suggested that their application permitted the circulation of Attic weight coins in the years following the reform. Bauslaugh, however, believes a more preferrable explanation is that these coins were part of the indemnity payment by Antiochos III to Eumenes II following the Peace of Apamaea, and that the countermarks were applied as the coinage was subsequently dispersed to the cities of the Pergamene kingdom.