127, Lot: 118. Estimate $200. Sold for $135. This amount does not include the buyer’s fee.

SELEUKID KINGS of SYRIA. Demetrios II Nikator. First reign, 146/5-139 BC. AR Drachm (18mm, 4.18 g). Seleukeia on the Calycadnus mint. Struck circa 146/5-144 BC. Diademed head right / Apollo Delphios seated left on omphalos; to inner left, star above five-lobed plant; two monograms and ISI in exergue. Houghton, Calycadnus 14 (A2/P2) = Houghton 576 (this coin); SNG Spaer 1652 (same dies). Good VF, toned, minor die flaws in obverse field, soft strike on reverse. Extremely rare, one of three known.

Ex Arthur Houghton Collection, 576.

This coin is one of only three known drachms from the Cilician mint of Seleukeia on the Kalykadnos. All three are from this issue of Demetrios II, with these particular monograms. The earliest issues of this mint are from the reign of Antiochos III, but remained a peripheral mint until the reign of the late king Seleukos VI. Demetrios' issues ceased circa 144 BC, when he lost much of Cilicia to the usurper Tryphon (operating under the nominal king Antiochos VI).