Happy Birfday to me...from Alcibiades! How to determine Starr group?

Of all days for this to arrive (I did win it 3 weeks ago) it landed right on my porch this morning, the morning of my 40th Birthday!

Attica - Athens - Owl Tetradrachm
450-405 BCE
Obv: helmeted head of Athena right. Rev: owl standing right; olive branch and crescent behind, AΘE before, within incuse square. 17.11 grams. Good very fine.

Literature
Sear 2526.
Purchased from Timeline auctions May 2021

A coin clearly used by Alcibiades when he absconded from Athens to Sparta during the Peloponnesian war! Pretty sure I can even see his pretty boy thumb print


Wishful thinking/dreaming aside, boyO does this coin bring favorite tales of that war rushing to my head like 5 shots of Absinthe taken in quick succession.
Guys whose names will remain legendary as long as the sun shines like Pericles:

(Pericles was said to have worn his helmet all the time due to his having an oddly long shaped head. No joke.)

Thucydides:

(at least Thucydides had the good sense to die right before the war ended)

Nicias:

(poor bastard got played twice and and gets to take all the blame)

Socrates:


and of course Alcibiades!


Betrayals, unforeseeable changes of fortune, fighting on land see and everywhere in between. Heck, Alcibiades even slept with a Spartan queen during it all and was such a big deal that even she bragged about it
And NOBODY would have guessed that this brutal, long and drawn out war would have ended with Athens (kings of the sea) losing a naval battle to SPARTA at Aegospotami!?!?!


I read through a bunch of old threads, tried searching for a site that lists how you can identify a coins Starr group and even searched ACsearch for coins under Sear 2526 hoping one might say. No luck. Anyone want to tell me or at least point me in the right direction of my new BFFs Starr group?
Any help is appreciated. And please post those coins from the time period of the Peloponnesian war, great/favorite stories from the war or anything that sinks your navy!

 

Log in or Sign up to hide this ad.

Well, my honest and very educated opinion is....

HAPPY BIRTHDAY!!!

 

Happy Birthday! Great birthday present to yourself!

 

Happy Birthday!

 

What a nice Birthday present. Happy Birthday to you Ryro.

Dave

 

Happy Birthday @Ryro and a nice coin. I recently celebrated my 39th (not). Be happy with hitting the big 4-0. It is the new 29.

 

@Ryro .....First Happy Birthday!...Secondly WOW!! That's a great looking coin!...Lovely detail with nice toning....Sweet coin!

 

I will be XXXVI next month, @Ryro, if you don't like it (not a perfect flan and let's face it, not such a beautiful coin) I will accept it as a birthday gift.

 

Happy Birthday!

Great coin.

I thought Starr groups were only for the pre-Mass Owl owls. Yours looks like a Mass Owl, so I am not sure it has a Starr group number. What you might want is the Flament number.

 

Happy birthday! A great coin for your special day.

 

Happy Birthday and Congratulations !!
My 50th is in 2 months ...

DonnaML is right, your coin is a Starr group V and it won't help you much to know that. If you want to narrow the chronology, you have to look at the book of Flament and assigning a coin to a Flament group is some kind of an art (especially if you don't read French)

My 2 cents is that your coin is a Flament group II dating 440-420.

 

Happiest of Birthdays, @Ryro ... and may you have many more HAPPIER Birthdays!

 

Happy Birthday and what a great gift to yourself. That is one wide-eyed owl!

 

Thanks so much everyone! And double thanks to @DonnaML and @Kavax!!! As you can tell I'm very new to the type but learning

 

The problem with determining Flament groups is that I haven't been able to find a detailed breakdown of the groups anywhere on the Internet, and the book itself isn't easily available in the USA -- the last time I checked, it had to be ordered from France and, as I recall, was quite expensive.

 

Funny you'd mention that. I found out the hard way that shipping books across the Atlantic is EXPENSIVE.
In the same Auction that I won the beauty above, I also won the Ryro...I mean royal Numismatics society complete Coin Hoards 1-6 set:


And I got it for a pound over opening bid 35£!
Then Timeline sent me the shipping. The prohibitive shipping price was triple the already inflated amount they charge since they utilize a third party that then uses fedex!
Long story short, I didn't have the books sent and in their next Auction they will be selling them for me (insert face palm here).

 

Happy Bday brother, but you're not suppose to buy yourself gifts. I think it a good idea for people to buy gifts for others on their birthdays. BTW, nice coin!

 

Happy Birthday @Ryro !

Your gift to yourself is just perfect and very well deserved. Enjoy.

It seems a great idea to gift oneself you should do it every year and by the way you gave me a great idea

 

Happy Birthday, @Ryro! a nice tetradrachm.

 

You can buy it directly from the university in Belgium for 50 euros. I don't know exactly how much is the shipping but it shouldn't be more than 20 euros.
https://numismatica.fltr.ucl.ac.be/tabmat/en1presentation.htm

Edit: the well-known bookshop-scalper was selling it for 69 euros. LoL