Heritage World Coin Auctions
NYINC Signature Sale 3061 7-8 Jan 2018
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Ancients
PAPHLAGONIA. Amastris. Queen Amastris (ca. 300-285 BC). AR stater or didrachm (21mm, 9.73 gm, 1h). NGC Choice VF 5/5 - 4/5. Head of Amastris or Mithras right, wearing Phrygian cap adorned with laurel wreath, bow in bowcase behind / [B]AΣIΛIΣΣHΣ AMAΣTPIOΣ, Aphrodite enthroned left, holding on extended right arm Eros (Cupid), who holds diadem to crown facing head of Helios in field between; scepter leaning against throne to right. HGC 7, 352 (R2). De Callataÿ, SNR 83, 10 (D3/R10). SNG von Aulock 6798. Very rare!
Amastris was the niece of the last Achaemenid King of Persia, Darius III, and was married off to several of Alexander's generals in succession in the years after the Macedonian conquest. After being "set aside" by Lysimachus in about 302 BC, Amastris decided to found her own city on the coast of Paphlagonia, and gave it her name. She served as its queen for the first years of its existence, and the city grew steadily in prosperity and importance in the decades and centuries that followed, eventually becoming incorporated into the Roman province of Bithynia-Pontus. The city's coinage is both rare and intriguing, the obverse portrait wearing a laureate Phrygian cap being variously described as the head of Queen Amastris herself, the Persian hero Mithras, or an Amazon warrior.
HID02901242017
Estimate: 1500-2000 USD
PAPHLAGONIA. Amastris. Queen Amastris (ca. 300-285 BC). AR stater or didrachm (21mm, 9.73 gm, 1h). NGC Choice VF 5/5 - 4/5. Head of Amastris or Mithras right, wearing Phrygian cap adorned with laurel wreath, bow in bowcase behind / [B]AΣIΛIΣΣHΣ AMAΣTPIOΣ, Aphrodite enthroned left, holding on extended right arm Eros (Cupid), who holds diadem to crown facing head of Helios in field between; scepter leaning against throne to right. HGC 7, 352 (R2). De Callataÿ, SNR 83, 10 (D3/R10). SNG von Aulock 6798. Very rare!
Amastris was the niece of the last Achaemenid King of Persia, Darius III, and was married off to several of Alexander's generals in succession in the years after the Macedonian conquest. After being "set aside" by Lysimachus in about 302 BC, Amastris decided to found her own city on the coast of Paphlagonia, and gave it her name. She served as its queen for the first years of its existence, and the city grew steadily in prosperity and importance in the decades and centuries that followed, eventually becoming incorporated into the Roman province of Bithynia-Pontus. The city's coinage is both rare and intriguing, the obverse portrait wearing a laureate Phrygian cap being variously described as the head of Queen Amastris herself, the Persian hero Mithras, or an Amazon warrior.
HID02901242017
Estimate: 1500-2000 USD