Was looking through an on-line
auction catalog and saw two coins that made my jaw drop. Hadn't seen or heard of this
type before. I'm sure many of you have, but thought they were beautiful and certainly have a fascinating origin. Thought I'd post the pics and
auction descriptions below.
Auction Descriptions translated from
French to English via Babelfish. Not the best translation, but you can get the flavor.
And if anyone has about 525,000 I could borrow, I'd be most appreciative.....
First coin pictured below:
Athens. Gold Statère, 407/406 av. J. - C, 8.59g. Helmeted
head of Athéna on the right, the decorated helmet sheets of olive-tree/
Owl upright on the right, the
head of
face, on an olive branch; in top on the left an olive branch and a crescent of the moon.
Svoronos -;
Jameson 2495 (this specimen); E.S.G. Robinson, Problems Nap in the Later Fifth Century Coinage off
Athens, YEARS MN IX, 1960, pl. I, 9 (this specimen). The most beautiful known specimen and one of the Greek currencies most important in the world. Tiny érafl ures of surface, if not
Superb exemplary. 400 ' 000. -
Specimen coming from the
collection Jameson 2945 and the Guermantes
collection, sale Leu 86 (2003), 380. The Peloponnesian War opposes from 431 to 404 the two principal Greek cities,
Athens the democrat and Sparte the oligarch.
Athens, with the
head of the League of Délos, dominates over sea thanks to a fl otte considered invulnerable whereas Sparte, Master of the League of the
Peloponnese, takes a lead in ground with its invisible hoplites. Nearly thirty years are necessary so that this confl it, which implies liking or of force the majority of the Greek cities, takes fi N. Linked, these last
had overcome Persians with Foundation into 479; seventy-five years later, they see this same Greek model crumbling into 404, submerged by its own dissensions. Struck into 407/406, little time before the Athenian defeat, our gold statère fully illustrates the anguish of the first
democracy of the
History. The Aristophane playwright lives in
Athens at that time and in Frogs that pays to us of which he is the witness: famished by the Spartans and private of its famous
money mines of Laurion,
Athens is forced to use the least piece of noble metal present on its territory. Seven of the eight
statues of
Nike (Victoire) placed on the Acropolis are stripped their plates dédicatoires out of gold. Each one weighs two talents, that is to say fifty two kilogrammes of gold fi N.
Athens can thus produce the equivalent of 42.000 gold statè
res. To see on this subject: W.
Thompson, The Golden delicious Nikai and the Coinage off
Athens, NC 1970, p 1-7. Only four specimens of this exceptional currency reached us. Three are preserved in
collections public in
Harvard,
London and
Oxford. Only one, certainly most beautiful, remains accessible. He points out the tragedy destiny of a city which marked forever the thought of the
Man and who remains, many centuries later, a model.
Second Coin pictured below:
Athens. Gold Statère, towards 296-295 av. J. - C., 8,60g. Helmeted
head of Athéna on the right, the helmet decorated sheets of olive-tree/
Owl upright on the right, the
head of
face; in top on the left one olive branch and a crescent of the moon; in the right
field, a bakchos.
Svoronos pl.21, 17 (this specimen);
Jameson 1193 (this specimen). Very
rare. Infi me double keying. Very beautiful specimen of this exceptional currency. 125 ' 000. -
Specimen coming from the
collection Well known foreign Statesman (Balmanno), sale Sotheby' S 1898,238, H.
Osborne O' Hagan, sale Sotheby' S Sotheby' S, 4-9/05/1908, 428 and of the
collection Jameson 1193. The gold which was used to strike this series
comes partly from that recovering the
statues of the Acropolis. Among those fi gurait famous Athéna Parthénos. Lacharès, which
had been initially made elect strategist in
Athens, then
had proclaimed tyrant,
had plundered the treasures of the Acropolis to pay its mercenaries. This plundering is reported as well by Pausanias (I,
XXV, 7), as share Athénée (IX, 405 S), Plutarque (De Iside and Osiride (LXXI) and a papyrus of Oxyrynchte (XVII, 2082). It is also told that Lacharès, having to flee in front of the troops of Démétrius Poliorcète, would have spread these currencies behind him to distract its prosecutors.
