Watch List notes:

Elis, Olympia, silver stater, c. 360-350 BC, F – A, head of Hera right wearing stephane decorated with lily and palmette, rev., eagle standing left with head turned back; all within olive wreath, 11.90, die axis 2.00, minor marks on obverse, struck in high relief, toned, very fine and rare. This coin published: Locker Lampson 235. Other references: Seltman 313 (dies EX/ια and this coin possibly 313b ("in the trade"). Provenance: Grand Duke Alexander Michailovitch Collection; Ars Classica XII, Geneva, 18 October 1926, lot 1554; G. Locker Lampson Collection; Münzen und Medaillen 72, Basel, 6 October 1987, lot 604; BCD Collection, Leu Numismatics 90, Zurich, 10 May 2004, lot 130; Gemini & Heritage VIII, Chicago, 14 April 2011, lot 59. Note: At Olympia there were two distinct mints striking, on the one hand the coins depicting Zeus, and on the other the coins depicting Hera (as here). We know that the mints were separated because there are no instances of cross linkage of the reverse dies which feature the eagle. In 1951 Charles Seltman published the so-called Katoché hoard of Elean coins (NC 1951, part 1) and in so doing produced tables attributing his obverse dies to specific Olympiads (which took place every four years). In a final footnote he stated : "..... an error of four years, but not more than four, either up or down, is a possibility". Thus, according to his scheme, this coin represents the stater issue from the Hera mint for the 106th Olympiad that took place in 356 BC. In the catalogue of the sale of the BCD collection in 2004 (where this coin featured) the cataloguer, whilst following Seltman's scheme, expressed some reservations (p. 52), hence a somewhat less precise date for the present coin is given here of c. 360-350 BC. (6000 - 8000 GBP)