471

Phokis. Lot of seven bronze coins.

Currency:CHF Category:Coins & Paper Money / World Coins - World Start Price:240.00 CHF Estimated At:300.00 - 0.00 CHF
Phokis. Lot of seven bronze coins.
The sign-up for this auction will close 48 hours before the auction starts. Please make sure you sign up on time. Also, there is NO ABSENTEE BIDDING for this auction. Please plan to bid live during the sale.
Multiple Lots. Lot of seven bronze coins of Lilaia in Phokis, end of 4th - early 3rd century BC. 471.1: Æ 4.02 g., 10¢. 471.2: Æ 4.34 g., 7¢. 471.3: Æ 3.72 g., 9¢. 471.4: Æ 3.79 g., 5¢. 471.5: Æ 3.83 g., 2¢. 471.6: Æ 4.00 g., 9¢. 471.7: Æ 3.29 g., 4¢. All with the distinctive Lilaian bull’s head facing, a parting of the hair at the top of the head below which the sacrificial fillet, depicted in fairly coarse beads, makes a curve and then hangs down after going behind the ears and horns. Its endings are 3-pronged tassels. Above the head, LI. Rev. A rather boyish Apollo r., the legend FWKEWN either behind the head, up circular clockwise (for the first three coins), or in front of Apollo’s face, downwards circular clockwise (for the last four coins). Yellow-brown and green patinas, an attractive lot. About very fine, some better. 471.1: Acquired from Bank Leu, January 1975, for CHF 60 and from the old stock of Jacob Hirsch. Fitzwilliam (McClean) 5501, pl. 199, 23. See lot 442 above. 471.2: Fitzwilliam (McClean) 5501, pl. 199, 23. See lot 442 above. 471.3: Fitzwilliam (McClean) 5501, pl. 199, 23. See lot 442 above. The reverse legend partly off flan. 471.4: SNG Soutzos 560 corr. [The same reverse die as this coin, therefore Lilaia.] 471.5: See lots 443 and 444 above. 471.6: See lots 443 and 444 above. 471.7: See lots 443 and 444 above. The fact that ten nicely preserved and fairly well centred bronze coins of Lilaia are offered in this catalogue should not make the reader think that these coins are common. As they are usually struck on a tight flan, the letters above the head of the bull denoting the ethnic are, more often than not, partly or wholly off the flan. It is therefore easy, if one is not familiar with their style, to mistake them for the Bull / Apollo series of the Phokian Confederacy. A correction has already been suggested for SNG Soutzos 560 (see above, lot 471.4) and the writer will venture even further and suggest that SNG Christomanos 732 and 733 are also coins of Lilaia. Furthermore, he will draw the reader’s attention to the so-called coin of Anticyra illustrated in SNG Cop 134. One can easily read the lower parts of the letters LI above the bull and the style of both the obverse and the reverse of this coin, in spite of the flatness of the strike, is obviously Lilaian to the trained eye.