PHILIP II TYPE GOLD STATER – COLOPHON ISSUE WITH PORTRAIT OF ALEXANDER THE GREAT – MINT STATE FINE STYLE NGC GRADED GREEK MACEDON COIN (Inv. 20033)

$42,500.00

20033. MACEDONIAN KINGDOM. PHILIP II, 359–336 BC.
Gold Stater, 8.60 g, 17 mm. Posthumous issue of Colophon under Philip III, ca. 322–319 BC, featuring the portrait of Alexander the Great as Apollo.
Obv. Laureate head of Apollo right, with the features of Alexander the Great. Rev. ΦΙΛΙΠΠΟΥ, charioteer driving biga to right, tripod to right below the horses’ rearing forelegs.
Thompson, Philip, p. 58, pl. VI, 12 = Jameson 978 (struck using the same obverse die); ANS 309.
Ex Hirsch 309, 5/7/2015, lot 98.
NGC graded MINT STATE, Stike 5/5, Surface 4/5, FINE STYLE, “brushed, Hirsch sale noted on the label.

The Apollo and biga stater types of Philip II remained the preferred coins for Thracian and other northern mercenaries even after his death in 336 BC. Staters with these types continued in production through the reigns of Alexander the Great (332–323 BC) and into that of his half–brother Philip III Arrhidaeus (323–317 BC). This particular example, struck under Philip III, is remarkable for the treatment of the head on the obverse, which deviates from the idealized young god of the original issues and instead travels down the path of expressive portraiture. Here Apollo has the piercing gaze, hairstyle and facial features often found on Alexander’s deified portraits under Lysimachus as well as on the famed Azara Herm in the Louvre. If so, this very limited issue may well be one of the earliest numismatic portraits of Alexander the Great.