Just bought this Hippocamp ,it was on my wishlist ever since TIF showed her Syracusian Hippocamp , mine is not the same high quality as her's, but I'm happy with $80 paid including shipping costs. Since most descriptions now say its struck under Dionysius I and not under Timoleon, I'll go with the flow. One more coin for my Sicily collection,soon to be placed in their own wooden presentation case.
TIF put this coin on my wish list aslo anderes! nice lookin' example for the money! this is a priority target for me this year!
@Andres2 nice job capturing that HIPPO! Looks great... Ugh, I FORGOT that I had this little devil... Sicily Syracuse ca 410 BC AE 19 Litra 8.6g Athena Wreath Hippocamp
There are four kinds of these coins according to Favorito (decent little book: Bronze Coinage of Ancient Syracuse). All used to be dated to Timoleon but hoard evidence pushed that back 25 years ago. The problem is that the best indicators of type wear away making it hard to tell what you have. You can tell yours and mine once had a wreath on the helmet like Alegandron's, Z's and TIF's because that type also shows a rein on the hippocamp while there is no rein on the plain helmet coins. A sub variation of the wreathed type has dolphins like mine. The fourth type has a snake on the helmet. There is a beautiful one for sale on VCoins now for $850 and a couple lesser ones that show part of the snake but lack the legend difference which makes them skippable to me. I can not get out of my head that it would be easy to tool a snake on the helmet creating the rare type so I won't be buying one without the correct legends, too. Since I owned my coin 20 years before I met TIF, I can not blame her. I do have a desire to get the other three types (but not for $850!) and can not blame her for that either. Favorito points out that the wreath helmet coins tend to be heavier compared to the smaller and dumpier plane helmets. I suggest not buying a coin not showing at least enough of the type indicators that you can convince yourself which you have. The rein is last to go.
I bought this one for the excellent hippocamp, plus I attended the live auction and felt the desire to bid on something . The estimate and starting price were both too high but here we are. SICILY, Syracuse. Dionysios I. AE 20, c. 390 BCE Had I not been at that auction in those circumstances I would have been perfectly content with one as nice as Zumbly's.
There all pretty nice coins for 400 BC, I picked up my one at reserve price on a Swiss auction a couple of year ago, like Doug's has the dolphins.
Congrats on scoring yourself a sweet OP-Hippocamp, Andres => oh, and great coin-additions, gang!! ... I happen to have a humble offering as well ...
I just bid on that first coin yesterday on Catawiki!!!!! Same exact coin as the first picture, I bid $42 it sold for $50 or $60 I believe. Still a good price for it.
Your's and zumbly's are perfect examples, question is there any way of knowing the different date range between this type and the type with the dolphins as per mine and Doug's?
