Lot 3747

Description

Siculo-Punic, (c.350-320/315 B.C.), silver tetradrachm, uncertain mint, (16.84 g), obv. head of Persephone or Kore wreathed with corn to left, with single drop earring, dotted necklace, rev. horse to left, compact palm tree with fruit behind, no legend in the exergue, (cf.S.6432, Jenkins SNR 56, [Series 2a] 74, [O22/R67, these dies], Schulman Auction Sale 264, 26.4.1976 (lot 5089, similar dies and condition realised 9100 +15.6% guilders), McClean 3035 similar dies). Crude flan shape, good very fine and very rare.

Ex Noble Numismatics Sale 61 (lot 2591) and Sale 64 (lot 2428).

After a considerable interval, Carthage resumed coining in Sicily around the mid-century, probably in response to the challenge of Timoleon. There are no legends which identify these coins as belonging to a mint or even to the `camp', but are probably military issues and consequently are very rare in ancient coinage. A camp mint was moveable, but it may have been headquartered most of the time at Lilybaeum. The obverse type of this coinage is copied rather crudely from the tetradrachms of Syracuse, but clearly, because of the harshness, is the work by a Punic engraver.