Today was the small local club show in Richmond VA. There were 3 or 4 ancient dealers of which I patronized two. As promised, I tried to keep an open mind and bought a few things that spoke to me. I'll start here with the largest, ugliest and most expensive of the day's haul. Demetrius Poliorketes, Macedon, 294-288 BC AR tetradrachm Victory on prow / Poseidon This is a relatively common coin and probably one of the worst ones I have seen but those factors made it fall in my budget. I don't get many big Greek silvers. The legends are quite weak and I have not convinced myself of the mint yet (mark in reverse right field). The surfaces could be better but the only part that really bothers me are the scratches at reverse left. The photo fails to give a good view of just how thick and high relief this coin is. The type comes in some smaller silver denominations as well as the AE13 version I have owned for 20 years.
Nice additions Doug. I wish I could afford big silver greeks too & I would gladly add yours, scratches and all.
I find this coin appealing even with the scratches, and it seems to have decent relief. Depending on the price, I think I would have been attracted to it as well.
Doug, very nice pick ups, half the fun is looking through all those coin box's till something jumps out at you, i want to get one of those prow coin's...:thumb:
Definitely a nice coin, rough porous surfaces, scratches and all make it a nice looking ancient coin! I'm like a lot of other people here that mentions that they can't afford these coins. Besides that, I just ain't really to collect Greek coins.
Doug, You say that it is relatively common but is still seems that the tetradrachm is less readily available than the Bull's horn diademed, Poseidon tetradrachm. A quick peruse showed me a few of the diademed variety for sale (of which I have an example) but no tets of the prow variety. There are a few drachm and fractions around. I think that you have made a very nice purchase indeed. The prow type always seems to carry a premium over the diademed type and in high grade quickly become prohibitively expensive. Congratulations. Many happy returns btw. Martin
