archaic owl drachm

[jakeveteran]

hi all,

we all know that true archaic owl tets, 490 BC (regardless if you believe in svornos dating - the oldest owls are from whatever age - some believe svornos and starr are off by 20 years) are rarer than hens teeth.

what about archaic owl drachms???

i have a chance to buy one, are they, like the tets, rare and desirable coins

thanks, jim hauck

[Lawrence Woolslayer]

In general, the Greek drachm is more rare than the tetradrachm, when both exist for same city or issue, but is less desireable.  
In case of Athens, drachm is  more rare.  In spite of this the drachm is less popular with collector except Athens specialist.

[Rupert]

Quite a few years ago I bid, I think it was 1300 DM at an auction for a really nice archaic Athens drachm, it went away for 1400 and something. I still wish today I had bought it, I saw only one since, and this one went very very high. If you can buy a good ARCHAIC drachm at a reasonable price and its certainly authentic, DO IT!

Rupert

[Rupert]

This was the coin, it was in Lanz 97, 2000. I still regret it today. Especially in the archaic series, the drachms are much rarer than the (in my opinion) mostly over-rated tets; those were big-scale trade currency, the smaller denominations were for domestic use.

Rupert