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Auction 26  21 May 2023
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Lot 301

Estimate: 850 CHF
Price realized: 3200 CHF
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PHOKIS. Pre-Federal. Late 6th century BC. Quarter Stater (Silver, 15 mm, 3.41 g), on the Milesian standard. Forepart of a boar to right, showing a single foreleg, erect bristles and beading on the shoulder. Rev. Diagonally divided incuse square. BCD Lokris-Phokis 167 (this coin). Of great rarity, one of apparently two examples known. An extraordinary coin, of great historical and numismatic interest. Bold and lightly toned. Some surface roughness and struck from a fairly crudely made obverse die, otherwise, good very fine.
From the "Collection sans Pareille" of Ancient Greek Fractions and from the BCD Collection, Numismatic Ars Classica 55, 8 October 2010, 167 ("Phokis"), ex Leu Numismatics 77, 11 May 2000, 344 and Münzen und Medaillen FPL 384, November/December 1976, 48 (both as "Uncertain Dynasts of Lycia").

While lots of boars do come from Lycia, and, presumably, that is why both Pierre Strauss and Silvia Hurter attributed this coin to an uncertain dynast from that region, this really does not look like a Lycian boar. It was correctly placed in Phokis thanks both to the realisation that a number of early coinages of the Greek mainland and the Peloponnesos were struck on the Milesian standard from Asia Minor, and to the fact that another example of the present type was actually found in Elateia in Phokis.
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