LYSIMACHUS SILVER TETRADRACHM – THE FIRST ISSUE OF BYZANTIUM WITH A TRIDENT IN THE EXERGUE – VF GREEK THRACE COIN (Inv. 20448)

$750.00

20448. KINGDOM OF THRACE. LYSIMACHUS, 305-281 BC.
Silver Tetradrachm, 16.84 g, 29 mm. Posthumous issue of Byzantium, ca. 260s BC.
Obv. Head of deified Alexander the Great right, with the horn of Ammon. Rev. BAΣIΛEΩΣ ΛΥΣIMAXOΥ, Athena enthroned left, holding Nike crowning Lysimachus’ name, MEO control monogram in left field, trident left in exergue.
Marinescu, Making and Spending Money along the Bosporus: the Lysimachi Coinages Minted by Byzantium and Chalcedon and their Socio-Cultural Context (Columbia University Dissertation, 1996), Issue 10, 23 (same dies).
VF, scratch on cheek, an important coin in Byzantium’s Lysimachi series as it is the first time that the city places Poseidon’s trident in the exergue, a feature that although short-lived at first returns later in the series to become the normative symbol of the coinage beginning in the early second century BC.