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NYINC Signature Sale 3071  6-7 Jan 2019
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Lot 33172

Estimate: 1500 USD
Price realized: 4200 USD
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Ancients
LYDIAN KINGDOM. Alyattes or Walwet (ca. 610-546 BC). EL third stater or trite (14mm, 4.70 gm). NGC AU 5/5 - 4/5. Uninscribed, Lydo-Milesian standard. Sardes mint. Head of lion right, mouth open, mane bristling, radiate globule above eye / Incuse punch of unusually deep design. Weidauer 86. Boston 1764. SNG von Aulock 2868. SNG Kayhan 1013. A sharp example of one of the earliest type coins.

Lydia was the first kingdom of the ancient world to make widespread use of the newly invented medium of coinage. Previously, city-states along the Anatolian coast had experimented with pre-weighing nuggets of electrum and marking them with various abstract designs. Alyattes, who founded the Lydian Kingdom circa 619 BC, standardized the striking of coins on a wide scale and used as an obverse design an image of the sun (shown as a "radiate globule") rising over a lion's head, the symbol of his family, the Mermnadae.

HID02901242017

Estimate: 1500-2500 USD
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