ALEXANDER THE GREAT SILVER TETRADRACM – RARE POSTHUMOUS ISSUE OF CHIOS – VF NGC GRADED KINGDOM OF MACEDON COIN (Inv. 20813)

$1,850.00

20813. IONIA. ISLAND OF CHIOS. CIVIC ISSUE WITH THE TYPES OF ALEXANDER THE GREAT, ca. 190-165 BC.
Silver Tetradrachm of Alexander type, 16.79 g, 31 mm. Posthumous issue of Chios, ca. 190-165 BC.
Obv. Head of young Heracles right in lion skin headdress. Rev. ΑΛΕΞΑΝΔΡΟΥ, Zeus enthroned left, holding eagle and scepter, ΠΦYC monogram above grapes and sphinx seated right on amphora in left field.
Price 2442; Robert Bauslaugh, “The Posthumous Alexander Coinage of Chios,” Museum Notes 24, pp. 1 ff, Series 87 (4 specimens cited, this specimen is obv. 99 with an unlisted reverse die).
NGC graded VF Strike 4/5, Surface 2/5, “brushed.”

This is one of the last issues assigned by Price to Chios, part of a group of five emissions where grapes appear next to the sphinx as he sits on a large amphora. Although not described as such in the literature, the sphinx is clearly HOLDING the grapes, with its right paw grasping them. The coin is very rare with only one other specimen in the market, four cited by Bauslaugh and an institutional specimen in Vienna cited in the Pella database.