Heritage World Coin Auctions
NYINC Signature Sale 3037 Sess. 2-4 5 January 2015
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Ancients
SICILY. Leontini. Ca. 476-466 BC. AR tetradrachm (24mm, 17.45 gm, 7h). Charioteer driving quadriga right; above, Nike flying right, crowning horses / ΛEONTINON, Head of roaring lion right; four barley grains around. Boehringer, Leontini 8 (these dies). SNG ANS 203 (same obv. die). Randazzo 81. Rare. Well struck and possessing perfect silver surfaces. Lightly toned. NGC MS★ 4/5 - 5/5.From The California Collection. Ex Numismatica Ars Classica 33 (6 April 2006), lot 33.One of the earliest Greek cities in Sicily, Leontini was founded near the southeastern coast of the island about 729 BC by a group of the same colonists from Chalcis who had settled at Naxos about five years earlier. Unlike nearly every other Sicilian Greek city, Leontini did not have a port and was located about six miles inland, on a fortified hilltop overlooking a fertile plain. It possessed a shrine to Apollo, who was prominent on the city's coinage; likewise the lion, a canting pun on the Leontini's name. The earliest issues of Leontini, represented here, combine a walking quadriga similar to the ones seen on Syracusan coinage with a ferocious lion head.
Estimate: 6000-8000 USD
SICILY. Leontini. Ca. 476-466 BC. AR tetradrachm (24mm, 17.45 gm, 7h). Charioteer driving quadriga right; above, Nike flying right, crowning horses / ΛEONTINON, Head of roaring lion right; four barley grains around. Boehringer, Leontini 8 (these dies). SNG ANS 203 (same obv. die). Randazzo 81. Rare. Well struck and possessing perfect silver surfaces. Lightly toned. NGC MS★ 4/5 - 5/5.From The California Collection. Ex Numismatica Ars Classica 33 (6 April 2006), lot 33.One of the earliest Greek cities in Sicily, Leontini was founded near the southeastern coast of the island about 729 BC by a group of the same colonists from Chalcis who had settled at Naxos about five years earlier. Unlike nearly every other Sicilian Greek city, Leontini did not have a port and was located about six miles inland, on a fortified hilltop overlooking a fertile plain. It possessed a shrine to Apollo, who was prominent on the city's coinage; likewise the lion, a canting pun on the Leontini's name. The earliest issues of Leontini, represented here, combine a walking quadriga similar to the ones seen on Syracusan coinage with a ferocious lion head.
Estimate: 6000-8000 USD