Alexander Tet - I am stuck - Help please

[Joe Sermarini]

Perhaps, before I spend another hour looking for this, someone knows the mint or Price number?  Thanks.

[djmacdo]

I am afraid I would have to spend an hour or two also, but I think I would start at Byzantium--it is certainly--no, probably--ok, maybe from the Black Sea area.

Mac

[Joe Sermarini]

Normally, these are easy... just use the index in Price.  This one has not worked out that way.

[djmacdo]

The style looks like the earliest Mesambria issues and the monogram is used on those early issues also, but the Mesambria tetradrachms always have the helmet symbol on the reverse.  Could this be an initial Mesambria issue before the helmet symbol was adopted?  A number of previously unrecorded Black Sea tetradrachms have appeared in the last couple of years.

On another note, I notice you have an attractive overstruck tetradrachm from the same area.  If the traces of the host coin were more readily identifiable, I would have ordered it.  If the host coin is Ptolemaic, it must have been a very early coin, before the weight reduction.  I shall continue to keep an eye on that coin--very interesting.

Mac

[Joe Sermarini]

I agree entirely with everything you wrote, Mac.

I was also thinking the coin in question could be an early issue from Mesembria. I believe the positions of Alexander's name and title, reversed from the norm, also points to Mesembria. Unless someone comes up with something else here, I will attribute it that way, but noting some uncertainty.

Someone else, with greater talents than mine, might actually be able to figure out the under type on the overstruck coin.  If anyone has ideas other than a Ptolemaic tet, please do share.  The image is below:

Mesembria, Thrace, c. 275 - 225 B.C., Civic Issue in the Types and Name of Alexander the Great
[See Photo Below]
SH65374. Silver tetradrachm, Karayotov p. 80 and pl. VII, 38 (O7/R20); Price 992; Müller 436, VF, overstruck with traces of undertype, nice style, Mesembria mint, weight 16.945g, maximum diameter 30.8mm, die axis 30o, c. 275 - 225 B.C.; obverse head of Herakles right, wearing Nemean lion-scalp headdress; reverse ALEXANDROU BASILEWS, Zeus seated left, right leg drawn back, eagle in extended right, long scepter vertical behind in left, Corinthian helmet right over PA monogram in inner left field under arm; $490.00

Traces of a legend from the undertype are visible curving along the obverse edge, most clearly from 12:00 to 4:00. Due to the curving legend, the most likely undertype is a Ptolemaic tetradrachm.

I know - one coin per thread.  In this case, however, these coins came to me together and the second coin also provides some indication of how the first might be attributed.

[El Reye]

The style of the throne appears inconsistent with an attribution to Mesembria, along with the missing Corinthian helmet symbol normally in the left field. The legs of the throne might well be more characteristic to another mint, possibly in the same region.

Cameron