Watch List notes:

Paphlagonia, Sinope. Silver Drachm (5.96 g), ca. 330-300 BC. Aiginetic standard. Formi., magistrate. Head of nymph left, hair held hair in sakkos, wearing triple-pendant earring and necklace; before, aplustre. Reverse: ΣINΩ, sea-eagle on dolphin left; above tail feathers, magistate's name: ΦOPM[I]. Cf. SNG BM 1489 (same magistrate but on a Persic standard drachm); SNG Stancomb -. Boldly struck and lightly toned. Quite choice. NGC grade Ch AU*; Strike: 5/5, Surface: 5/5. Estimate Value $600 - 700
Pontic Sinope was founded by Milesian colonists as a center for trade on the Black Sea coast of Asia Minor in the seventh century BC. It served as the seaport for a caravan route that extended south to Mesopotamia and trafficked in grain, luxury goods, and a red earth pigment used throughout the Greek world for painting. This hematite-rich earth was known as sinopia or "Sinopic earth" after the city that exported it, but it was actually mined in the neighboring region of Cappadocia rather than in the environs of Sinope. In the fourth century BC the civic badge of Sinope was a seabird clutching a dolphin, but on earlier drachms only the head appears and if the dolphin is present at all it is as a small subsidiary symbol.