Lot 2535

Description

Euboia, Euboian League, (c.375-357 B.C.), silver stater (12.01 g), obv. cow lying to left, turning her head back to right to lick her left shoulder. rev. EYB Head of the nymph Euboia to right, wearing a ring-shaped earring and with her hair rolled, (S.-, BCD 2 (same dies, obv.III, rev.2), McClean 5703 (same dies). Wallace 4 (dies III/2 No.6 [This Coin], HGC 4, 1411 [R]). Surface roughness on the obverse otherwise very fine/nearly extremely fine and very rare.

Ex Numismatik Lanz Munchen, Auction Sale 114, May 26, 2003 (lot 111), from the Collection of BCD who obtained it from W.P. Wallace who got it from the 1951 hoard (p.49), and was an additional example to the two in the BCD Sale 111 of November 25, 2002 (Lots 1 and 2, they realised 14,500 and 13,500DM + 22%. The Nomos Sale 3 (lot 85) May 9, 2011 previously lot 2 in the BCD Sale realised 50,000 + 20% SFr.
Wallace in his book NN&M No.134 'The Euboian League and its Coinage' knew of of 11 examples from this pair of dies and a total of 27 examples of this type. Wallace dates the issue 411-410 B.C., but BCD down dates the issue to as above. The earliest coins of the Euboian League formed a small number of rare groups. The first series bore a cow, the canting badge of Euboia, on their obverse and the head of the eponymous nymph on the reverse. The second, and all later issues, removed the cow to the reverse and left the obverse to the nymph. This was surely due to the influence of other familiar coinages, especially that of Athens with its famous owl on the reverse.