Hi all! I'm looking for some advice regarding a recent acquisition I've made. Ever since it arrived I've been trying to puzzle together a proper attribution for it. I like tetradrachms of Alexander and I like attributing them. This has lead me to start buying cheap, ugly and unremarkable alex tets whenever one shows up in my purview. As it did in this case. Kings of Macedon. Alexander III (336-323 BC). AR Tetradrachm. Pella (?) Struck 285-275 BC. Head of Herakles right, wearing lionskin headdress / Zeus seated left, holding eagle and sceptre, ΑΛΕΞΑΝΔΡΟΥ. ΑΓ monogram beneath throne. 16.3 g, 27.4 mm. Price 550. Attributing the coinage of Alexander, as with many other areas of ancient coins, is dependent on mint marks. On my coin, two monograms on the reverse are visible and they will (hopefully) lead us to an accurate attribution. Starting with the usual suspects, I tried matching the monograms with the catalogued symbols on Pella (http://numismatics.org/pella/symbols). This yielded somewhat mixed results. Inspecting the left field monogram very closely, I was pretty sure it at least contained Π, A and P, but nothing came even close to matching what was on my coin. Identifying the monogram beneath the throne was luckily not as challenging. It being one of the better preserved parts of the coin helped much in this regard and I suppose since it's not a very intricate monogram that made it quite easy also. Looking through the listed types that contained the ΑΓ monogram I was able to find a great candidate in Price 550: http://numismatics.org/pella/id/price.550. Besides having the monogram positions mixed up, it seemed to be very close to my coin. The only variation being the left field monogram. Looking a bit further I was able to find this example of Price 549 in the BM collection that is an obverse die match to my coin, confirming that at the very least my coin is a related issue: Kings of Macedon. Alexander III (336-323 BC). AR Tetradrachm. Pella (?) Struck 285-275 BC. Head of Herakles right, wearing lionskin headdress / Zeus seated left, holding eagle and sceptre, ΑΛΕΞΑΝΔΡΟΥ. Price 549. This type shares the exact same left field monogram that is seen on my example, containing Π, Α, Ρ, Δ, and Ν. Price however, listed 550 as only containing an Α, Ν, and Ρ monogram. This lead me to start thinking that either Price made a mistake when cataloguing the type, or my coin is an unrecorded variety of an already extremely rare type. All that I needed now was a picture of another example of Price 550 to confirm my little hypothesis. Finding nothing in Pella I decided to scounder through acsearch for any sales record that might be available, but alas, nothing. Consulting Price's actual book on the subject, The Coinage in the Name of Alexander the Great and Philip Arrhidaeus, I was saddened to see that my coin was not plated. He did however cite one example of the type belonging to the Munich state collection but no pictures seemingly exist online of it. So... In conclusion. I seem to have stumbled across quite the rarity. Either that or I'm missing something! Looking forward to any and all suggestions/thoughts on this.
Just my wild guess... The monogram beneath the throne matches Price 550, but that coin features the monogram in left field. The monogram on your coin in left field looks like Price monogram 1233. This matches the left field of Price 549, but Price 549 has a much different monogram below the throne. Your left and below monograms match those of Price 548. Obviously, your coin is not Price 548 because it's not gold. All three coins date from 285-275 BCE, Pella, so your coin is undoubtedly from that period. It looks to me to be unlisted, at least in Price. There are other references for Alexander tets, none of which I have. I'm not familiar enough with Alexander's coins to know how common it is for the staters and tets to have the same monograms, but that's what looks to have happened here. Note that Price 548 itself appears quite rare. I couldn't find any copies for sale, though ANS owns one. I presume the British Museum may have another.
Ah, found it... Mathisen, who is probably the best for the Macedonian coinage slightly before and at the beginning of Antigonos II Gonatas, lists this coin. You can read it here. Your coin is in table 10 (Monogram group), first entry. He believes it was minted in 274/3 BCE by Antigonos II Gonatas, before he was booted by Pyrrhus.
Wow!! Great find, thanks. I suppose one can become a little tunnel visioned endlessly scrolling through Price and nothing else Many thanks for the link too! I'll have some reading to do this weekend..
