Riding the Crest

As phalanx after phalanx of Athenian tetradrachms march across the on-line auction and retail websites, a constant attribute that almost guarantees a premium is the presence of Athena's helmet's crest, the more complete, the better.

Which raises a question for bidders and buyers: "To crest or not to crest, that is the crestion".

In terms of overall appeal, any ancient coin that shows all of the design elements should, other things being equal, be deemed more desirable and thus command a higher price. That's really just common sense. But the question is, to what degree should a full crest command a significant premium?

This is an Athenian tetradrachm, mass production (mid or so), from Roma, that has a good portion of the crest present.

Note the relatively wide flan used in mid mass production owls (25mm) allowed for more of the crest detail to show on the coin. This was done at the cost of the minor loss of chin and nose.

Athens, After 449 BC
Tetradrachm
Obverse: Head of Athena right, wearing crested Attic helmet ornamented with three olive leaves above visor and spiral palmette on bowl, round earring with central boss and pearl necklace.
Reverse: Owl standing to right with head facing, olive sprig and crescent behind, ΑΘΕ before; all within incuse square.
17.22 grams
25mm, 2h

Near mint state.



The flans used to strike archaic, transitional and mass production owl tended to be narrow, sometimes "dumpy" (especially for the archaic owls) and quite irregular in many cases. This limitation almost guarantees that some part of the obverse, sometime reverse, is off the flan. In the case of the above coin, part of the "E" is off the flan on the reverse.

The hammer price for this coin was £550. With a 20% buyer's commission, the total cost (not including postage or currency conversion fees) was £660 or $818, which seems to be the going price for an example such as this.

Here's a true "full crest" tetradrachm (not mine), which sold at auction for £1,700, not including buyer's commission.

Athens, After 449 BC
Tetradrachm
Obverse: Head of Athena right, wearing crested Attic helmet ornamented with three olive leaves above visor and spiral palmette on bowl, round earring with central boss and pearl necklace.
Reverse: Owl standing to right with head facing, olive sprig and crescent behind, ΑΘΕ before; all within incuse square.
17.17 grams
25mm, 1h

Near Extremely Fine

Coupled with a wide flan, for Athens, is a compact die, which helped in producing a full detail coin. Compared with the first coin, the style is more refined and not nearly as crude.



Of course, there are other factors to consider with these coins, other than the presence or lack of crest detail. The above coin, while high grade and showing a lot of design elements, is relatively crude in style compared to earlier tetradrachms.

The earlier tetradrachms appear to have been struck on fairly small, narrow flans. While the crest is virtually absent on this example, the die work is finer in style, both in the rendering of Athena and the owl, with more of a high relief, sculptural effect.

Athens, 460-454 BC
Tetradrachm
Obverse: Head of Athena right, wearing crested Attic helmet decorated with three olive leaves over visor and a spiral palmette on the bowl.
Reverse: Owl standing right, head facing, with spread tail feathers; olive sprig and crescent behind; all within incuse square.
Starr Group IV

NGC VF

Purchased through eBay in 2019.



Finally, here's an early mass production coin, from Roma, with minimal crest detail.

Athens, After 449 BC
Tetradrachm
Obverse: Head of Athena right, wearing crested Attic helmet ornamented with three olive leaves above visor and spiral palmette on bowl, round earring with central boss and pearl necklace.
Reverse: Owl standing to right with head facing, olive sprig and crescent behind, ΑΘΕ before; all within incuse square.
17.16 grams
24mm, 8h.

Good Very Fine

Slightly lower relief for both the obverse and reverse with this coin (more with the obverse). Still, it is clear that care was still being taken both with die preparation and striking. The flan is a bit cruder compared with the Starr IV coin.



So, is the full crest the end all when considering bidding on or buying one of these fascinating and historical coins? Of course not. With so many owls on the market, one should be able to pursue one's bliss, within, of course, one's budget.

If you have any owls or other coins that you'd like to post, please do so.

Thank you.

 

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I think the answer depends on how picky a collector is. I don't know the exact ratio, but judging from the Heritage offerings, it feels like only 1 among 30 offerings are full crest pieces. With this in mind, I think most collectors will feel ok for one without crest, as the "norm" seems to be without crest.

However, for one who is very interested in Owl like myself, the approach may be different. I would rather go for a full crest, and not to worry about "upgrade" in the future.

Here is one I purchased last year or 2. It shows a little bit of crest all the way around Athena's helmet. It helps to remind me that the full obverse design has a crest.

 

Eventually, I go for one with full crest. While sacrificing some striking details, I feel I can finally calm down my desire for more Owls.

 

I love “groaners” @robinjojo, and that is a very good one! But seriously, you have posted some very beautiful coins here, thank you!

 

Very nice coins @happy_collector. Thank you for posting them.

 

Thank you.

I feel that every coin has its own personality, especially since these and other ancient coins were hand struck.

An open mind helps, precluding any prejudices that one may have, such as refusing to consider coins with test cuts. I do not actively look for coins in this condition, but if one wanders by that is of interest, and the price is reasonable, why not?



PS - I think I got as much mileage out this coin as I can for a while, so off on vacation it goes....

 

I didn't "need" a full crest on the example I was looking for but wanted enough crest visible and clearly defined that you could tell what it was. That, balanced with an attractive owl on the reverse and most of the bead loops at the base of the neck and well centered. I was really happy with this example.

 

What any one of us think makes no difference unless we agree with the 10,000 people who have been told that they should value a full crest. There are enough of these coins available that we each can find one that fits. I wish I had not bought one that is decidedly second rate compared to what is available in these post-hoard days. For the same money, I could now get one with better owl details. Then, I valued the nose room.


The 'supercoin shown above and repeated here:

differs greatly in the way it shows both crest and the curl on the shoulder at the bottom. Having that on flan is scarce so we should be glad most people don't care about it. On the other hand, there is some wear on the curls and the owl is not as graceful as some so I could see room for improvement for those who are not fixated on the crest alone. Years ago I had a friend who specialized in owls but would not even look at one with the nose touching the edge no matter how wonderful the rest of the coin might be. We all have our thing.

 

One beautiful coin.

Congratulations

 

+1

 

Beauty, or desirability is in the eye of the beholder.

While certainly not contestants for any beauty contest, I found these coins, with the left facing owl, interesting enough to add to the collection, which seems to be becoming more eclectic in scope each day. I guess that goes back to my interest in almost anything, which is okay as a general approach to life, but it sure causes the collection to lose focus.

 

Great archaic, I love it!

My owl has enough of everything to keep me happy. The most prominent absence is the shoulder curls, which was the detail I cared least about. (Most importantly it only cost me about $500 all-in.)

 

Very nice coin.

Actually, I think the chain extension from the bottom of the helmet is a neck and shoulder guard.

 

I think so too, but people seemed to be calling them curls in this thread.

 

I think I adopted this "thing" about the nose some years back from your telling this story. To that I added the front of the crest (and sometimes helmet) being missing and the owl having an indistinct beak. Mine is close to Sev's in its lack of shoulder curls, necklace, and tail of the crest, but those bothered me less. As you say, "we all have our thing."

I lean towards hair. There's a pretty good post about this over on Forvm:
http://www.forumancientcoins.com/board/index.php?topic=117078.0

 

The full crest was possible with only a few designs where the head of Athena was relatively small and so with a careful strike you could get the whole of the head on the flan. Styles of these designs vary and the nicest one I recently saw is the Potts example which hammered a 5 digit number (https://www.acsearch.info/search.html?id=5281308).

While I would like to get a really full head on the flan at some point in time, I have been beating around the bush so far as I am also looking into other details. For example my latest addition below has probably the deepest strike I have seen so far and almost a full incuse square. The crest, although still on the flan, can't be described as full as the lines have been destroyed.

 

This.

This too .

While I wouldn't say no to a full crest example as long as it also had a very well-centered reverse, with the full square described, I don't feel inclined to pay the steep premium for a full crest... especially not one deemed so by a label within the plastic box . (because it will drive the price very high from the registry-minded crowd!)

For years I refrained from getting an owl tet because the prices were so annoyingly high. It's such a common coin! Why the high price tag?! There's no denying its importance in history though and I finally caved last year. I still didn't want to spend a lot though so I picked my faults carefully. As pprp said, there were only a few designs/dies in which Athena's head was small enough to leave room for a full crest on these compact flans, so a full crest was out. Other than ensuring the obverse was centered well enough for her nose to be off flan or touching the edge, my primary goal was to have a reverse with a full square or nearly full square. I didn't feel compelled to buy a superduper high grade example and here's what I ended up buying:


ATTICA, Athens
c. 454-404 BCE
AR tetradrachm; 17.21 gm, ~25 mm
Obv: head of Athena right, with frontal eye
Rev: owl standing right, head facing, closed tail feathers; olive sprig and crescent to left; AΘE downward in right field; all within incuse square
Removed from an NGC slab; AU 5/5 strike, 3/5 surfaces, "Parliament Collection"

At some point I would like a couple of earlier examples-- and archaic and a transitional. Maybe some time in the much farther future I'll pick up a later example with profile eye and even an imitative.

 

Indeed slabbed ones with the * especially in HA go very high and I did have to overpay for a couple of them I needed.

However, several collectors dumped their old coins in the market as they "upgraded" from the hoard. This is a good opportunity for specialists or collectors who don't look for the MS/stars and medals. I was very fortunate to get a few "dumped" coins from old collections. The toning does give a better eye appeal.

 

Multiple considerations - if someone offered me this coin (at a price I could afford), I certainly wouldn't turn it down:

I liked both of these Athenian Owls for very different reasons - and price/quality ratio for both were factors. This first one, for me, a sufficiently attractive example of this iconic coin:

This second one more interesting when paired with this paper:
John H. Kroll. (2011). The Reminting of Athenian Silver Coinage, 353 B.C.: For George Cawkwell in his 91st year. Hesperia: The Journal of the American School of Classical Studies at Athens, 80(2), 229-259.

"not only are the flans commonly misshapen, but a number of them are so distorted that numismatists and coin collectors in Greece have long referred to them as “logs” (koutsoura); these are the tetradrachms in the form of long, stretched ovals with one or two nearly straight sides"
-Kroll (2011)

 

Thanks! I had been perusing these for about a year and this one fit what I was looking for at a reasonable cost.