Watch List notes:

Auction 88 Part I
Greek Coins
Troas, Abydus (?)

Stater circa 500, EL 14.04 g. Eagle standing l., with closed wings, looking backwards. Rev. Quadripartite incuse punch with irregular surfaces. BMC Ionia pl. I, 23 = Traité I, pl. VIII, 16. Boston 1808 (these dies).
Of the highest rarity, apparently only the third specimen known and the only one in private.
hands. A magnificent representation of superb Archaic style, minor marks on
obverse field, otherwise extremely fine

From a Swiss private collection. Privately purchased in 1988.

As the animal-familiar of Zeus, the eagle makes numerous appearances on Greek coins, yet it seldom occurs as a standalone design with the bird in a distinctive pose, such on this stater. Like so many electrum coins of Asia Minor, this piece bears no inscription and its reverse is struck with a roughened quadripartite incuse square of the mill sail type. In most respects it is similar to the products of Cyzicus, and to the trained eye it might come as no surprise if – its extreme rarity aside – the eagle was perched upon a tunny.

This type is illustrated in the British Museum catalogue of Ionia (pl. I, no. 23), where Head includes it among the unspecified early electrum pieces of that region, though he makes the suggestion that it may have been issued at Abydus. Svoronos favoured a Northern Greek attribution, and thus included it (pl. IX, 1) in his work on Macedonian coins; he also discusses other attributions, such as Jameson's suggestion of Abydus or Cyme. Kraay (ACGC no. 75) favoured Abydus and went further still by includes it among the coinages he ascribes to the 'Ionian Revolt' against Persia, thus dating it to c.500 B.C. For his views on that coinage, see lot 423.