WALWET ELECTRUM TRITE – RARE LION FACING LEFT INSCRIBED ISSUE – CHOICE FINE NGC GRADED GREEK LYDIA COIN (Inv. 20832)

$3,000.00

20832. LYDIA. “WALWET,” ca. 620-560 BC.
Electrum Trite (1/3 stater), 4.70 g, 13 mm.
Obv. Head of roaring lion left, “sun disk” on forehead, royal name FAΛFET (partial) in Lydian script at right, this being the right part of a larger die that included two confronted lion heads. Rev. Pair of incuse punches with irregular interior surfaces.
Linzalone, LN1079; Weidauer Group XVII, 94; cf. Morton & Eden 124, 9/26/2023, lot 453 for a specimen struck from the same obverse die in a slightly less worn state.
NGC graded CHOICE FINE, Strike 4/5, Surface 3/5, “marks.”

The relationship between Lydian issues inscribed Kukalim and those inscribed Walwet indicated by die sharing has led Wolfgang Fischer-Bossert’s convincing argument that the former should be attributed to Gyges and the latter to his son and immediate successor (see INC Warsaw 2022 Proceedings). Although Herodotus names this son as Ardys, the Greek historian Xanthos of Lydia calls him Alyattes—the Greek form of Walwet. See Wolfgang Fischer-Bossert, “FAΛFET and KVKAΛIM,” Proceedings of the XVI International Numismatic Congress, 11-16.09.2022, Warsaw, Vol. i: Greek Numismatics, ed. by Jaroslaw Bodzek, Aleksander Bursche, and Anna Zapolska, WSA, 10 (Turnhout, 2025), pp. 403-409.