I've often admired the tortoise and sea turtle coins of the Islands off Attica. I finally found one I couldn't resist. Although not noted in the sellers description, this is a very rare "Head in Profile" transitional issue. Islands off Attica, Aegina Transitional Issue Land Tortoise Islands off Attica, Aegina. Circa 456/45-431 BC. AR Stater 12.40g, 22mm O: Land tortoise, head in profile, with segmented shell R: Large square incuse with heavy skew pattern. - Meadows, Aegina, Group IIIb; Milbank pl. II, 13; HGC 6, 437 var. (head not in profile); SNG Copenhagen 517 var. (same); Dewing 1683 var. (same); Gillet 948 var. (same); Jameson 1200 var. (same); Pozzi 1635 var. (same). Here is the comment from the same type sold at a Triton auction. "The head of the land tortoise on this massive coinage is typically engraved shown from above, with the tortoise looking forward. Very rarely are they encountered with the head shown in profile. The profile head was canonical on the earlier, sea turtle coinage, thus the land tortoise coins of this variety may represent a short transitional issue at the beginning of this period." I know there are a lot of tortoises and sea turtles out there, let's see them!
That is not the sea turtle I expected you to post. It is a cool example with a very prominent beak but I imagine there’s more to it. Looks like a tunny on the left
There is a large die cud left of the turtle. I often wonder how bad a die failure had to get before they retired it. I assume they needed to continue production while a new die was being cut.
The OP Turtle is beautiful, the detail is fantastic and makes mine looks like a lump of metal rather than a turtle.
That’s a great coin @arizonarobin. Your example is a sea turtle, not a tortoise, so it never had the segmented details on the shell. The sea turtle staters often have no detail or just simple bumps down the middle of the shell which are the first details to wear off.
As usual for our CT club, there are some nice turtles to see here. A group of turtles may be called a bale. Here is thread depicting a bale: https://www.cointalk.com/threads/turtle-power-help-date-these-aegean-stators.256882/#post-2042262